
American Dramatists Series 

Captain of tt)e ?|os;t 
ZKfje Supreme tKest 




Class __Z_f^Li^ 
Book ■'>/.-r 

Cop}Tigiit^:^ 



COPnUCHT DEPOSIT 



Americ an Dramatists' Series 

CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 
THE SUPREME TEST 

TWO PLAYS BY 
FLORENCE ELISE HYDE 




BOSTON: THE GORHAM PRESS 
TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED 



COPYEIGHT, I916, BY FLORENCE EUSB HyDK 



All Rights Reserved 






^^ 



DEC -! 1916 

Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



»CID 46J00 






V To THE Memory oe 



iV- 






ELOISE 

My Onxy Sister 

Dear Companion oe My Girlhood 

Who Died in Her Brilliant Young Prime 

Apeu, Eighteen, Nineteen Hundred and Nine 



CONTENTS 

FAOX 

Captain of the Host 9 

The Supreme Test 147 



CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

A DRAMA IN THREE ACTS 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

Major Christopher Faring, 

Veteran of the Civil War 
Peter Taggart. .Bachelor and Genial Woman Hater 

David Ransom Dilettante and Visionary 

Joel Longworthy. Gold Miner 

Irene Ransom, 

An Ardent Young Person Who Craves to Live Life 
Mrs. Pleione Nearing, 

A Discreet Widow of Decided Orthodox Opinions 
Cecil Gordon Keith, 

Student and Cosmopolite of Latitudinarian Ideas 

Nellie ■ ■ -^ Irene's Maid 

bTRANGE Gentleman and Two Assistants. 



Act I. — Living room in Ransom house. Time — 

Evening in May. 

Act II. — Same as Act I. Time — Evening in Octo- 
her, jive months later. 

Act III. — Parlor in Longworthy's New York 
Apartments. Time — Morning in March, six months 
later. 

There are three scenes in Act I, four scenes in Act 
II J eight scenes in Act III. 



CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 



ACT I 

Living room of a stately decayed house with fire- 
place in one corner. The furniture is dilapidated, the 
carpet on the floor faded and worn. There are several 
chairSj a Boston rocker and a big arm chair of leather, 
a couch with pillows and spread with an Indian blanket, 
a tree for wraps, a stand on which is a lamp. In the 
middle is a large antique table of mahogany with heavy 
carved legs, claw feet, whose top, without covering, is 
defaced with scratches. It is littered untidily with 
books and magazines. 

Enter Christopher Faring, heavy and portly, delib- 
erate and humorous of speech, a major in the Civil 
War of 1861-65, and Peter Taggart, a bachelor of 
fifty, slight and muscular of figure, spruce in his ap- 
pearance. From his coat pocket protrudes a bottle. 

Time — Eight o'clock of evening in May. 

Scene I 

Major Faring — {To Taggart.) It doesn't fol- 
low, because we got in, that Dave's here. Latch string 
always out is his motto. (Strikes the floor heavily with 
his cane.) Hey! isn't any one home? I'll bet Dave 

9 



lo CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

hasn't got back from one of his hikes! {Strikes with 
his cane again.) Where's the girl? {Listens.) 

Taggart — Might's well make ourselves comfortable 
whilst we await developments. ( Takes from his breast 
pocket two cigars and offers one to the major.) 

Major Faring— (^//A a show of reluctance.) 
Really, now, it's my turn, you know. I can't always 
be acceptin' from you, Peter. 

Taggart — Shut up! Your cigars aren't 's good 
as mine and you know it. {Lights the other.) Sit 
down. Major. {They seat themselves. Major Faring 
in the big arm chair, Taggart in the rocker, reclining 
easily, his feet elevated to the table.) 

Major Faring — {Lighting his cigar.) He's the 
greatest chap for trampin'! Never saw anything 
beat it! 

Taggart — He's of the outdoor people, you know; 
a lover of Nature in her various moods. {He smokes 
slowly, with only occasional pulls at his cigar, his 
features, under the spell of the weed, assuming a look 
of placid and retrospective contentment.) 

Major Faring— Yes, I know. Thirty miles on 
Monday, thirty on Tuesday to Watkins Glen an' back. 
Taggart — Keeps him strong and hardy. Plenty 
of fresh air and vigorous exercise make for a good 
old scout who can shake his fist in the face of Father 
Time. 

Major Faring — The devil it does! Couldn't do 
it at my age. 

Taggart — Don't pick a quarrel with your age! 
You've got a good lease on life yet. 

Major Faring— You're a kid, Peter, 



ACT I II 

Taggart — Course, I know that. The youngest of 
the trio. Still, I wasn't brought up to hoofing the 
country over, digesting the books I had read mean- 
while. I had to work when I was young. I didn't 
have a father to give me the advantages of a university 
education and then leave me a handsome house, or 
rather a mansion, you might call this, and money to 
boot. I had to hustle and do for myself or else starve. 

Major Faring — So did I. Dave was one of the 
privileged ones. 

Taggart — ^Aw! but, Major, what's the use of talk- 
ing? You had political pull from your services to 
the Union. It isn't every chap can be three terms 
sheriff of a county. 

Major Faring — {Draiuling.) It only goes to 
show how much the people valued my services. 

Taggart — Sure! The dear confiding peepul! 

Major Faring — {Shutting his eyes.) The grate- 
ful peepul! {His mouth is flexible and the twist of 
the corners when he is particularly sportive is extremely 
mirth-provoking. At such times he has a slow-dazuning, 
gradually broadening smile that is irresistible.) 

Taggart — And so now you can afford to keep bees 
for the recreation of your old age. I wonder what my 
pastime will be? {Relights his cigar ^ which has gone 
out.) 

Major Faring — It ought to be rearin' a kid or so. 
A feller well situated in a pecuniary way as you are 
to bring 'em up right, with qualities sure to make him 
a good husband an' family man, ought in duty bound 
to feel he owed something to his country. 

Taggart — Oh, bother his country! 



12 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Major Faring — (fVlth his irrepressible smile.) 
If you had fought an' bled for it now,. it would have 
relieved you from further sense of responsibility to- 
ward it. 

Taggart — I'm not lying awake nights worrying 
about my responsibility toward it. 

Major Faring— (5Ac)trn^ his head in mock seri- 
ousness.) I don't know what's got into the young 
men now-a-days. They don't seem to feel they owe 
any obligations to wimmin or to the nation, for certain 
sure they aren't gettin' married as they did in my 
time. 

Taggart — Good reason. Women have become 
uneasy gadabouts, without any interest left for their 
homes, spending their time in clubs complaining about 
the injustice of men and asserting their rights to take 
over the part of men. What sort of wives do they 
make? 

Major Faring — I suppose the sex think Dave, 
now, he ought to get a new mother for his girl. 

Taggart — Dave! Ha, ha, ha! Do you think a 
spinster whose last hope had taken wings would look 
on Dave as a rescuer? 

Major Faring — Dave must be well fixed, for he 
never had a real job in his life save putterin' when the 
fit took him at settin' type in the office of The 
Eagle. Dave, on principle, don't believe in squanderin' 
his time money-grubbin'. 

Taggart — And money won't last always when it's 
not increased a cent, unless there's a fat heap of it. 

Major Faring — So I infer he must be well fixed. 

Taggart — {Shaking his head.) I wonder? This 



ACT I 13 

place is fearfully run down at the heels. I don't 
believe he's ever laid a dollar out on repairs since it 
came to him, and the furniture is the same as in his 
father's time. 

Major Faring — In his case, that's no particular 
sign of a want of means. Rather it might be due to 
his natural carelessness an' indifference to externals, 
an' he's thinkin' precious little about such things. His 
mind is occupied with literatoor. 

Taggart — Self -improvement. 

Major Faring — ^You've said it, Peter. He's got 
a fund of information laid up that no other feller could 
gather in two lifetimes. I wish I had his likin' for 
literatoor. Writin' men must be a pile of comp'ny 
an' make a chap blamed independent of the society of 
every-day folks. Why, Dave will sit down here at 
this table sometimes of an evenin' an' read right straight 
through until mornin', oblivious of time, or perhaps it 
might chance he picks up a book in the mornin' an' 
then on to afternoon, not aware of a blessed thing 
transpirin', he's that absorbed! It's wonderful! If 
he had a wife bustlin' around here he w^ouldn't be left 
in peace to follow his inclinations, as I've told him 
more'n once. Wimmin are always flittin' about, 
bustin' in on your quiet at the most inopportune times, 
plaguin' j^ou with some fool trifle or naggin' you about 
something you've left undone. 

Taggart — His wife is safe and sound down below. 

Major Faring — ^Well, she is unless her spirit 
wiggles out to the surface to harry him. Dave's had 
his experience an' I figure he's smart enough to know 
when he's well o&. 



14 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Taggart — Now you're talking sense, Major, and 
giving expression to what is your real conviction. You 
know you wouldn't in sober earnest advise any fellow 
when he is single and happy to spoil his comfort and 
leisure and independence by taking on one of these 
modern appendages. 

Major Faring — I should feel it my duty to pref- 
ace it with a warning if I did. {With an upward 
twist of his mouth.) But suppose now, just for the 
sake of argument, you know, even with Dave fore- 
armed, some hussy should manage to get her hooks 
in on him again! 

Taggart — {Laughing.) The whole sex is so con- 
foundedly persistent and wheedling that a man has 
to be constantly on his guard, and even old Dave, 
armor proof in more ways than one, may not escape. 

Major Faring — Wimmin are always designin'. 
Still, there is no legitimate excuse for a feller who has 
been married; his experience ought to make him in- 
vincible against their wiles an' if he isn't a blamed 
idiot — just a natural plumb idiot — it will! 

Enter David Ransom 

{He is sixty-five years old, tall, sinewy of build, 
with wisps of longish grizzled hair and dark sparkling 
eyes overhung by rough gray brows. He is careless 
to the point of slovenliness in his attire, wearing a 
dark blue flannel shirt with soft collar, a floiving tie, 
baggy pepper-and-salt trousers, and stout thick-soled 
walking shoes.) 

Ransom — Well, friends, you have forestalled me 
this evening. Already in possession, I see. 



ACT I 15 

Taggart — Making ourselves comfortable for the 
usual seance. Have a cigar, Dave? {Proffers one.) 

Ransom — Thanks. I took a little longer stroll than 
I expected when I started and it w^as dark before I 
realized how late it had become. Where is Irene? 

Major Faring — Haven't seen her. 

Ransom — She's probably had her supper and gone 
out somewhere. It's immaterial. I can get my own. 

Exit Ransom. 

Taggart — {Reliffhting his cigar.) I'll wager he 
hasn't had a crumb of dinner and doesn't even re- 
member, the Spartan! 

Major Faring — Dave's soul is above mundane 
trifles. It's always soarin' in the empyrean. 

Taggart — ^Absorbed in the illimitable. 

Reenter Ransom, bearing a bowl and a thick slice 
of bread. 

Ransom — She had left this on the kitchen table for 
me. {Crumbles the bread in the bowl.) I resemble 
the poet Shelley in this, friends, that I never let the 
question of food seriously dominate me. At the inter- 
vals when the stomach needs replenishment and civi- 
lization has therefore decreed it a custom that meals 
shall be served, if it chances I am where nourishment 
can be provided, I eat; and when not preoccupied 
with more important matters, with enjoyment, too. 
But if circumstances prevent aliment being placed 
before me, I am not sensibly affected by its want, 
often not even consciously aware of its absence. 
{Stands and takes huge spoonfuls of the bread and 



i6 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

milk. Sets the empty bowl on the table.) There, 
that ceremony is completed. Life is too crowded with 
things of interest and high import to devote more pre- 
cious time than is absolutely essential to so purely 
animal a function ! Gentlemen, I expect a new guest, 
a lately reurned citizen, here this evening, who will 
metamorphose this trio into a quartette. It is Nick 
Longworthy's son. You remember, perhaps, he has 
been gone for the past fifteen years, gold prospecting 
in the great fields of the world, and he has struck some 
measure of success, so I learn, in the Yukon country 
in Alaska. Kit, you knew Nick Long\vorthy? 

Major Faring — Knew him? I should say! 
Wasn't he corporal under my own command in the 
company I formed myself to go to the front? An' 
hark you, Dave, that same company was among the 
very first full companies that enlisted in the North ! 
That was some distinction, what? It belonged to 
General Frederick Townsend's Third Regiment of 
New York Volunteers. The only trouble with poor 
old Nick was he didn't have the faculty of forgin' 
ahead, an' it wasn't much to be wondered at with a 
wife unvaryin'ly delicate an' poorly an' olive branches 
numberin' eight or nine. Why Teddy Roosevelt 
could well have recommended that feller as one 
who saw his duty to the world plain and done it! 
He was a blacksmith by trade, an' a hard-workin' 
faithful, steady, industrious feller, too, but brave as 
he was, he couldn't stand up under the strain of con- 
tinual sickness an' kids comin' with the frequency of 
rabbits. Many of them never grew to maturity atall, 
takin' after their ma as they did, an' the steady expenses 



ACT I 17 

of doctor's bills an' funerals kept Nick from gettin' 
a dollar ahead. This feller Joe was the hardiest of 
the outfit, formed to endure. He actually must have 
had gathered in his person the vigor that belonged 
to the entire bunch, an' being the strongest an' most 
capable member, he just had to turn in when he was 
the merest striplin' to help keep the family from the 
poor house. Joe worked at carriage makin'. He had 
a love of learnin', but scant time to spend on books. 
He stayed home until he was a grown man, poolin' 
his wages in the family pot, until the few of the kids 
that death spared got old enough to help themselves. 
When the parents died an' his sister Pleione married 
(she stood near in age to him — only one other be- 
tween) — then, an' not till then, he went away to 
make his fortune. I hear he has come back for a 
little while in order to fix up the old homestead for 
his sister to live in, she havin' been left a widow. She 
went West, you remember, Peter, when she married. 

Taggart — I remember. 

Major Faring — Pleione's husband wasn't much of 
a hustler, hardly a fit match for a smart, efficient girl 
as she was, bein' a futile sort of a feller, in delicate 
health, an' he left her about as poor off in this world's 
goods as when he found her. Then you've seen Joel, 
Dave? 

Ransom — I've not had that pleasure. I sent him a 
note inviting him to become acquainted with me. 

Major Faring — I wonder what he's grown into. 
He' was a big, handsome figure of a man, as I recall 
him, with the strength of an ox, an' a straight upright 
way of carryin' himself that all the drudgery put on 



i8 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

him couldn't bend or droop. He'd a made an imposin' 
soldier, with that born military air of his. 

Taggart — About how old is he by this time? 

Major Faring^How old is Joe? Now let me 
count it up. The war closed in '65, an' Nick an' 
Mary weren't married until some time after that. 
Must have been two or three years. I remember 
Letitia an' I carried our Juley in our arms to the 
weddin' an' she was two years old, an' Joe came the 
next year, somewhere along in June, if I recall rightly. 
Our Juley was the last child christened in the old 
Dutch Reformed Church an' it was made three years 
later in the Congregational, an' Joe was the first baby 
christened in that. {Reminiscently .) Let's see — our 
Juley is forty-sev-en — eight, fort>'-nine now, an' that 
would make Joe all of forty-six this comin' June. 

Ransom — And after a youth spent in laborious toil 
so unremitting as to deprive him of leisure for higher 
development — we will admit with some excuse, as it 
was entered into for the sake of those not able to 
sustain themselves — he is devoting the best years of 
his maturity to the ignoble pursuit of gold hunting. 
What utter folly for a man of intelligence, endowed 
with the powers of reason, when there is not the slight- 
est necessity for such a course of action ! 

Taggart — But, Dave, a fellow has got to work 
in order to get something ahead that will procure in- 
dependence for his old age! 

Ransom — Nonsense! Why fetter one's thoughts 
to a future that may never come? Any man of average 
abilities can make a living without consigning his lib- 
erty to ceaseless slavery! What more does a sensible 



ACT I 19 

person want than to have simply enough to sustain 
him whilst he inhabits this transitory body? The fe- 
verish pursuit of money for what it procures — material 
possessions, exaggerated luxury, convenience and com- 
fort, that only serve to reduce life to a mere animal 
plane, is at a cost out of all proportion to its advantage. 
What are the benefits derived from such acquisitions 
when measured against the sacrifice demanded of every- 
thing that is of permanent, intrinsic and abiding worth ? 

Major Faring — ^A chap likes to stand well in his 
community. Honor among his feller bein's is the 
very breath of many a man's nostrils, an' if he doesn't 
strive, how the deuce is he to achieve anything or count 
in others' estimation? He likes to feel he wields 
some influence whilst he's here — that he is somebody. 

Ransom — Local notoriety, temporal power that are 
forgotten as soon as he is laid in his grave — are not 
those pitiful aims for a man of spirit to contend for 
amidst the rivalries that breed jealousies, hatreds and 
restless discontent! {He strides about the room.) 

We are here to become, for a brief hour, an infini- 
tesimal element of the Great Scheme that transcends 
the reach of the finite intellect and imagination, to 
serve what ends we are powerless to discover, how- 
ever curiously we may conjecture, however persever- 
ingly we may pry into the mystery. There is a 
mighty veil just behind the visible interposed between 
us and the unknown that conceals the unknown's 
identity within impervious folds. What is back of 
that screening veil, what is contained in this colossal 
universe, no earthly being, grope as he will, has ever 
fathomed, for the Outward alone is all that we can 



20 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

see; the Material alone is all that is evident, substan- 
tial and tangible. Who of us knows what the ulti- 
mate design is, if definite objective design there be 
any at all ? Who of us knows what our petty strivings 
avail? Who of us knows whether our mortal achieve- 
ments, taken collectively, have any value in the grand 
evolutionary process of which life is a fractional part, 
or are lost altogether in the ceaseless mutations of the 
physical world? 

What is permanent, what really counts when meas- 
ured against the stupendous aggregations of the Eter- 
nal? Then why trouble ourselves to struggle after 
objects of sordid gain that bring us in point of common 
living to the level of the brute? Life is too fleeting to 
squander its precious moments on trivial or meaning- 
less quests when the mighty external world laid open 
to our view invites us to its contemplation. What 
exhilarates a man's thoughts, lifts him out of him- 
self, as does communion with Nature? What is more 
majestic, more soul-inspiring than the sight of the 
stars glittering in the boundless spaces of the dome 
at night? What is more sublime than the radiance 
of the sunrise, or more beautiful than the freshness 
of a Spring morning? To strive after paltry things 
amidst splendors and wonders, to seek ephemeral 
achievements in a universe of mystery, is the part of an 
unthinking man ignorant of what is worth while; 
to enjoy whilst he may, to be exalted in mind, to keep 
pure in heart, is the part of an emancipated man and 
philosopher. You can't eat your cake and still have 
it, and in making your choice as to what enterprise or 
thing your limited time is to be devoted, you must take 



ACT I 21 

into consideration the relative values of life, what in 
the long run is of paramount importance. To me, 
the comforts, the luxuries that dollars and cents can 
buy, public honors or fame in the world gained by 
slavish truckling to those in power, are purchased at 
too dear a price when my liberty is exchanged for 
them. I like to feel that I am master of my thoughts 
and my actions released from the trammels of con- 
vention, owing no human being ignoble service. I 
like to feel that I am a free spirit to come and to go 
as I will, with time to enrich my mind with knowledge 
and the best that the great thinkers of the ages have 
left as a heritage to mankind! (A knock sounds on 
the door. Ransom goes and opens it. Joel Lonff- 
worthy stands on the threshold.) 

LoNGWORTHY — David Ransom ? 

Ransom — Yes. 

LoNGWORTHY — I am Joel Longworthy. You wrote 
me bidding me to come to you and I am here. 

Ransom — You are welcome! Come in! {Shakes 
hands. ) 

(Longworthy enters the room. He is tall, mag- 
nificently proportioned, with large, fair and regular 
features, blond, thick-growing and coarse hair streaked 
with gray. His profile, in its clear-cut nobility, bears 
resemblance to an ancient cameo. In his retrospective, 
slow-moving eyes is a glint of humor. He carries him- 
self easily with the poise of pride and dignity. The 
entire man is instinct with power.) 

Ransom — My friends. Major Faring and Peter 
Taggart, Mr. Longworthy. I guess you remember 
the Major? He's an institution here. 



32 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

LoNGWORTHY — One that is among my earliest 
recollections, I would have known you anywhere, 
Major, you have changed so little. 

Major Faring — Only grown a little older and 
grayer. 

Longworthy — Well, one could not hope to escape 
all traces of fifteen years. You see they have not 
spared me. {Takes Major Faring's extended hand 
and shakes it heartily. His hands are toil-worn and 
calloused. He shakes hands cordially with Taggart.) 

Ransom — Now sit down and make yourself at 
home, Mr. Longvv^orthy, or shall we say Joe? It 
sounds more familiar and friendly. This chair is the 
most strongly serviceable. 

Longworthy — {Seating himself in the arm chair.) 
I was always known in this town as plain Joe, and 
it is pleasant when I come back home still to be so 
called. Are you still in the bee industry, Major Far- 
ing? 

Major Faring — I couldn't part with my bees — 
they afiford me a heap of interest. 

Longworthy — Of course they do. They were 
familiar to pretty nearly the whole town in the old 
days, I remember. 

Major Faring — On their quest for sweets in every 
neighbor's garden! Folks don't cultivate flowers as 
they used to an' it forces my bees to go far afield, 
often two an' three miles, in order to gather their 
honey. Late years I've got 'em in my garret an' I 
leave the windows open an' in the mornin' they fly out, 
an' every night, no matter how far the distance they 
travel, back they come, safe an' sound ! It's wonderful, 



ACT I 33 

their unerrin' sense of direction! 

Taggart — Dave here wouldn't spend his time in 
such an ignoble occupation as cultivating bees, even 
if he could derive a pretty little profit by it, as does 
Major. 

Ransom — I might, for the sake of recreation and 
as an amusement of my leisure. What I am opposed 
to is a man selling his liberty to any exacting occupation 
or business whatever form it might chance to assume. 

Major Faring — {To Longworthy.) Do you find 
things much changed? 

Taggart — ^As though any change would be percep- 
tible in fifty years! These little towns are as slow- 
moving as glaciers. 

Ransom — I count it my good fortune to have found 
a haven in one place that is spared this insatiable 
American madness for improvement. 

Longworthy — I haven't had time to go around or 
look up my acquaintances. Some of the old timers who 
were here when I left are missing, and other residents 
I remember have moved away. The young fry grown 
up during the fifteen years of my absence are utterly 
unknown to me. I feel somewhat a stranger. 

Ransom — ^Are you intending to settle down here? 

Longworthy — I am without intentions for the 
future. I returned to look over the old place, I am 
laying out repairs, and making alterations in our home- 
stead. When I left here it was sold on mortgages and 
now I have bought it back again. It is badly run 
down, but some outlay will fix it up comfortably for 
my sister. 

Major Faring — It's a fact, Joe, you always had 



24 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

things pretty hard here an' scant opportunities. Yours 
was bad luck. 

LoNGWORTHY — (fplth a slow smile that lights his 
face.) That's as you look at it. To be sure I missed 
a higher education and the wider fields of usefulness 
it would have opened up. But when a chap finds his 
work so close to his hand that he is saved the trouble 
of going around looking for it, I call that his oppor- 
tunity. And when he does that work the best he 
knows how, it brings a sense of real satisfaction. 

Ransom — Um, um! 

Taggart — {Rising.) I brought a bottle of Sherry 
to foster good feeling among us. Where are the 
glasses, Dave? Oh, I see! {Goes to the stand and 
lifts a tray with ivine glasses.) 

Ransom — I don't believe they've been rinsed since 
last time. 

Taggart — What matter? ( Uncorks the bottle and 
pours the wine into the glasses. Each takes a glass.) 

Major Faring — {Raising his.) A greetin' of 
welcome, Joe, an' here's to your health, wishin' your 
continual presence among us. ( They all touch glasses 
and drink.) 

Major Faring — Just the same, comrades, a college 
education is about as valuable a settin' up in business 
as a father can give his son these days with competition 
so growin' keen. For an average ever'day man, it is 
almost a necessity if he's to get very far in the scrim- 
mage, an' it wouldn't hurt a Carnegie or a Rockefeller, 
either. Letitia an' I did what we could in givin' our 
Juley a chance, fixin' her a way to earn her livin' if 
she ever had to come to it. Well, she married, as you 



ACT I 25 

remember, Joe, nine or ten years before you went away 
from here. She was soon left a widow with a little 
boy, our Cecil, an' means so precious scant she was 
obliged to turn to an' help herself. We took the 
child off her hands, as you all recall, an' Juley went to 
New York, where her knowledge of typewritin' came 
in handy, for she got a job in a big wholesale garment 
establishment with remuneration enough to support 
herself. We gave the youngster livin' here with us, at 
a small cost, the fullest opportunities the public schools 
could afford an' after that he warranted more, for 
he was an uncommon quick an' studious lad, if I do 
say it, who shouldn't. But there we came up short 
against a snag, for we hadn't saved much, I always 
advocatin' livin' well whilst money was easy, an' con- 
sequently we were pretty much dependent on my 
pension. Now right here is the most utterly out of 
the common, most novel circumstance I'm goin' to 
relate you, comrades, you just ever have heard in many 
a day, so highfalutin' it seemed to belong legitimately 
to a Laura Jean Libbey Fireside Companion yarn. 
That September followin' Cecil's graduation from 
High School in June, Juley received a letter from a 
firm of lawyers, Saxson, Margrave an' Company, in 
New York, enclosin' a check endorsed by the firm 
for a thousand dollars! The letter said a client in- 
terested in her son Cecil desired this money to be 
used to defray the boy's expenses for the college year 
in any American university she saw fit to select ! Well, 
you can wager the unexpectedness of it took her breath 
away, an' she was curious an' incredulous enough. 
She went straight as her feet could carry her to the 



26 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

firm an' asked some questions. The lawyers told her 
they weren't authorized to furnish any particulars 
regardin' the check, save that it was perfectly genuine, 
or the identity of the donor, as it was the donor's wish 
to remain unknown in the transaction. They weren't 
at liberty even to divulge if it were a man or a 
woman, sayin' only it was a person interested in the 
boy! 

They assured her that each year foUowin' more 
checks would be sent. An' so they were, as regular as 
clock work. She chose the University of Pennsylvania. 
After Cecil got his B.A. degree there, another surprise 
was forthcomin'. A check for tw^o thousand dollars 
arrived, with the word it was to defray a year's ex- 
penses abroad, an' that he was to study for a Ph.D 
in any German university he should elect. He's on 
the third year in Berlin now. 

Ransom — And you are still left without inkling 
as to the identity of this good genie? 

Major Faring — Dave, we haven't any more idea, 
however much we speculate, as to this unknown bene- 
factor than we had the day the surprise was sprung! 
Now, comrades, I put it to you, don't you call this a 
regular Arabian Nights romance? 

LoNGWORTHY — It IS Certainly odd enough to pique 
one's interest. 

Taggart — Curiosity, you mean. 
Major Faring — You've said it, Peter. Why, it's 
more than odd — it's remarkable. Just consider a min- 
ute, comrades. Here's my grandson, a talented feller, 
keen for learnin' an' aspirin' to make some figure in 
the world as we know, but still only the merest obscure 



ACT I 27 

atom on this earth crowded with people. Why should 
he be picked out from a million other American boys, 
probably not a whit less brilliant an' ambitious? 

Ransom — It's probably the work of some eccentric 
philanthropist who makes a business of seeking out 
promising young men who are handicapped in their 
educational ambitions through poverty. 

Taggart — ^That's the way it appeals to me, Dave. 

Major Faring — You think then this philanthropist 
never knew any of us? 

Ransom — Probably not. Doubtless an impersonal 
benevolence. He or she, (for it's just as likely a 
wealthy woman,) on the lookout for a worthy object 
of patronage, was apprised of your Cecil's record in the 
schools and the conditions of your own and your 
daughter's finances that made it out of the question 
for you to gratify his aspirations, and thought here's a 
young man possessing real merit who deserves aid, 
and decided at once that there was found the right case 
on which to expend beneficence and as a result put 
out the helping hand. 



Enter Irene Ransom. 

{She is a handsome slip of a girl of twenty-three 
with a sullenly defiant air. She is of a striking gipsy 
type, dark, with brilliant eyes and glowing cheeks. 
Her clothes are shabby, the skirt of electric blue is 
ill-fitting, frayed at the hem, short in front, hangs un- 
evenly at the sides and touches the floor at the back. 
Her hair hangs in a thick black braid to her waist 



28 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

and is loosely tied at the nape with big ribbon bows 
of red. She has a fondness for high colors and her 
V-shaped blouse of soft silk is crimson with a big black 
bow at the bust line.) 



Scene H 

Irene — {To Major Faring and with a curt nod to 
the others.) Your wife came out from Mrs. Bas- 
comb's as I was passing by. 

Major Faring — {With affected nonchalance.) 
Ah, did she? 

Irene — She told me to tell you this. {Assuming 
a hostile air and in high shrewish tones exaggerated 
to a falsetto.) Last night she couldn't sleep a wink 
from the dead ache of the rheumatism in her knee, and 
you know very well what a nervous state she is in and 
how much she needs a decent night's rest so as to do 
the work you expect her to do days, never providing 
as you do a hired girl to help about a single blessed 
thing. If you had got the slightest consideration for 
her health, to say nothing of her feelings, you wouldn't 
need to be told to come in at a reasonable hour. Any- 
way she isn't going to be kept awake by you hounding 
out with your boon companions until midnight, and you 
are to come home right straight away. 

Taggart — Now listen to that, will you! 

LoNGWORTHY — "My wife is shrewish when I keep 
not hours." {Irene turns on him a scolding glance.) 

Ransom — Irene, prithee allow me to introduce you 
to Mr. Joel Longworthy, who formerly lived here. 



ACT I 29 

My daughter, sir. 

Irene — I've heard you spoken of many times. 

LoNGWORTHY — It is gratifying to know that whilst 
absent I am both thought and spoken of. 

Irene — {Pointedly.) It need not always be a cause 
for congratulation to a person to know he is spoken of 
in his absence because often what is said is far from 
complimentary to him, 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) I fear that I am ex- 
pected to infer that my reputation does not always 
escape unscathed from the hands of my townspeople. 

Irene — Well, they freely discuss you as everybody 
does discuss those who are not present to hear what 
they are saying, and they speculate about you too. 

LoNGWORTHY — Ah, I begin to realize I am of more 
importance than I thought if I am a subject of curios- 
ity. 

Irene — And criticism. 

LoNGWORTHY — Yes, and criticism. {Looking at 
her attentively .) And can this be the little girl whom 
I recall the last time I saw her carrying her doll 
baby in her arms! 

Irene — {With a shrug.) Oh, that was ages ago! 

LoNGWORTHY — {With a slow smile.) Fifteen 
years would seem a long time to you. 

Major Faring — {Rising.) Well, comrades, I've 
got to decamp. 

Ransom — Don't talk about it. It's early. 

Taggart — Why, we haven't begun yet to settle 
down to our evening's confab. And we want to re- 
new our acquaintance with Joe here. 

Major Faring — I tell you these are superior 



30 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

orders, marchin' orders an' imperative. I've got to 
go! 

Taggart — Don't be a ninny, Kit, tied to your wife's 
apron strings. You aren't going to be cowed down 
by a woman. Stiffen your backbone. Assert your 
independence! 

Major Faring — Previous attempts have proved its 
uselessness. 

Taggart — {Knitting his brows.) Nonsense! You 
a major accustomed to men's obedience with a medal 
of honor for distinguished bravery, run around by a 
mere woman! Why do you allow her to be captain? 

Major Faring — I didn't allow her to be cap- 
tain. She appointed herself to the post an* I can't 
remove her. 

Taggart — {Froiuning angrily and in a loud im- 
perious voice.) Fight it out to a finish and see who 
wields the authority, who is the man of the house. 
You are no jelly fish. Major. Then mutiny! Who 
are women anyway? Well enough so long as they 
are kept down in their place, but the very mischief 
when you weakly yield to them and they get dis- 
satisfied and over-aspiring, and it's a well-known fact 
if you give an inch they'll take an ell. 

Major Faring — They're here an' a necessary evil 
you can't eliminate if you would. To give them their 
due they are a real consolation to a feller with sore 
throat an' aguish chills when they fetch brandy an' hot 
water an' flats to his feet in the middle of the night. 
They mean well enough an' they've got to be coaxed 
along an' conceded to here an' there if you manage to 
live with them in any sort of amit}\ 



ACT I 31 

{Tag gar t snorts.) 

Major Faring — ^You bein' a bachelor, Peter, who 
never entered into intimate daily relations with them, 
can't appreciate the peculiar position in which a mar- 
ried man finds himself betwixt an' between, so to speak. 
(Mournfully.) It's better to preserve the peace even 
at the sacrifice of some independence. I've had ex- 
perience an' I learned to resign myself to the exigencies 
of the situation a good many years ago. I tell you 
this, comrades, wimmin have a lot of ingenious means 
of makin' you feel their resentment when they think 
they haven't been treated square, or you've displeased 
them some way or other. Even if they don't nag 
you, an' most of 'em are purty efficient with the use of 
their tongues, they can express their injury in their 
manner of walkin' an' holdin' their heads. It's won- 
derful the variety of methods they have at their com- 
mand to bring about a situation to their satisfaction. 
If a man possessed such inventive resources, it would 
be the makin' of his fortune. An' my wife is an 
uncommon capable woman, an' I believe competent 
wimmin as a general rule are inclined to take things 
in their own hands. 

(Irene catches up the milk bowl and spoon and mith 
a scornful glance of defiance at the men flounces out.) 

Taggart — (Looking after her.) That's a hand- 
some girl you've got there, Dave. 

Major Faring — ^You want to get that girl married, 
Dave. 

Ransom — Married ? Oh, there's plenty of time for 
that! 

Major Faring — (Shaking his head.) Don't be 



32 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

too sure. You wake up one mornin' an' your child, 
who was playin' the hist you noticed her with her 
doll baby, has blossomed out into girlhood so it seems, 
as a plant bursts into bloom over night, an' then be- 
fore you can realize it her freshness has faded, exactly 
as the flower withers, an' she's past her prime. You 
want to see she has her opportunities right now to 
meet fellers in order to make her choice of a hus- 
band. 

Ransom — She isn't thinking of such matters. 

Major Faring — But you should be, Dave. It's up 
to you to give her her chance. 

Ransom — {Loftily.) I've got more important mat- 
ters to occupy my attention than busying myself with 
matrimonial projects. 

Major Faring — {Earnestly.) My dear feller, 
don't talk that way. There's nothin' more important 
when a man assumes obligations than to discharge 
them conscientiously. 

Ransom — A man is bound first to the assertion of 
his individuality, and he owes to its development to its 
fullest measure his chief dut>'. His most sacred ob- 
ligation is to that primarily whatever other obligations 
natural or self-imposed there may be. 

Major Faring — {Sententiously.) A man's most 
sacred obligation is to his family. 

Ransom — {Coldly.) You needn't trouble yourself 
to enlighten me any further on this point. 

Major Faring — When that girl finds herself 
gettin' along an' it comes over her her day has waned, 
she'll be grieved an' disappointed she's neglected an* 
passed over an' then womanlike she'll look around to 



ACT I 33 

find somebody to lay the blame on. An' she'll put 
it on you, Dave, sure as Fate, an' complain she didn't 
have a fair deal. An' it'll be true, vi^on't it, if you 
don't bestir yourself ? I leave it to you, comrades, don't 
a man owe himself foremost to others when he gets 
married an' takes the responsibilities of children? 

Taggart — ^You've said it, Kit. Either that or 
keep out altogether. 

Major Faring — {To Ransom.) Don't take amiss 
what I say, old friend. I'm just warnin' you, Dave. 
{Moves to the door.) 

Taggart — Wait a minute, Kit. 

Ransom — There's no occasion for hurry, Peter. 

Taggart — Fve got a sick mare in my stables. I 
called in the Vet. early this evening to diagnose her 
case and now I must go and see how she's coming. 

Major Faring — Peter's worst enemy couldn't lay 
to his door want of kindness to his horses. Good 
night. 

Exeunt both. 

Scene III 

Ransom — {To Longworthy.) My friends, assum- 
ing the privilege of long familiarity which they think 
licenses them to concern themselves with my affairs, 
proffer unsolicited advice. 

LoNGWORTHY — Shrewd sense is not lacking in what 
the Major has said. 

Ransom — ^You really think so? This is the first 
time I have had the matter presented to me. It goes 
without saying I have never seriously contemplated 



34 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

it, owing to the fact I have had so many other and 
more momentous concerns to occupy my attention. 
The paramount idea I held as regarded my daughter 
was to fit her to become a suitable and congenial com- 
panion to myself. To that end I have taken unwearied 
pains to direct the girl's studies and reading, and my 
care has been well rewarded, for she is remarkably 
well informed for a young person at her time of 
life, usually given over to irresponsibility and inanities. 
Indeed far from partaking of the trivial light-headed- 
ness characteristic of her age, I can truthfully assert 
she is of a serious turn of mind with a fondness for 
knowledge and a pronounced taste in literature. 
Enough of this. {Drcnvs his chair close to Long- 
worthy's and leans confidentially toward him.) Now 
when I wrote you the note to come here this evening, 
Mr. Longworthy, it was prompted by a special motive. 
I am at a pass in my financial aflFairs that might 
fittingly be termed a predicament. When my father 
died I fell heir to this house and some few securities, 
that altogether net a small income not adequate to 
defray even our modest expenses; and you can see, my 
dear sir, that we live in a fashion so plain and ab- 
stemious as to actually approach the primitive in its 
simplicity. For all that, with the passing of the years 
and owing to the fact that my intellectual pursuits were 
of a nature so absorbing as to leave me scant time to 
devote to employment of a gainful nature that would 
materially add to my income, I was necessitated to 
place a mortgage on this property amounting to fifteen 
hundred dollars. This mortgage came due the first of 
January and now my mortgagee will foreclose without 



ACT I 35 

further delay, as I am powerless to redeem it, and 
have indeed for the past two years been unable to keep 
up my semi-annual payments of interest. It is, of 
course, a truism to remark that this property will be 
sacrificed if exposed on a forced sale. In this state 
of my affairs, learning that you had returned from the 
Yukon, and doubtless not empty-handed, my thoughts 
have turned to you as a possible solution of the prob- 
lem, and I have even been emboldened to hope you 
might be induced to lend me the amount sufficient 
to cancel this indebtedness. I knew your father and 
esteemed him as a most worthy man, and whilst I was 
not in a position to financially aid him in his desperate 
straits as could and did the Major, he was never at 
any stage in his difficulties deprived of my moral sup- 
port. Owing to that good will I entertained for 
him, it has not seemed presumptuous to have recourse 
to his son in this hour of my own perplexity. 

LoNGWORTHY — ^Any friend or well-wisher of my 
father has strong claims on the interest of his son. 

Ransom — Precisely as I thought you would regard 
it. 

LoNGWORTHY — Even if professed good will did not 
materialize into tangible acts. 

Ransom — Exactly so. You see, Mr. Longworthy, 
I feel that the influence I exert on this community 
as an abiding force for culture and progress is the 
greatest service that could possibly be rendered it, 
and should earn me immunity from the sordid enter- 
prises of commonplace men so utterly inconsequential 
when measured against the things that are permanently 
worth while our attainment and possession. A man 



36 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

who is consecrating his full powers to the intellectual 
and moral uplifting of the beings contained in that 
sphere to which he has been appointed, should be 
relieved from the petty cares that consume the energies 
of those not ordained to the highest missions. And 
with my sincere conviction of what my particular use- 
fulness consists in, I have held to the position I have 
taken from the first. It makes not the slightest dif- 
ference whether my endeavors in the superior realms 
are appreciated or even recognized by those whom I 
seek to benefit. A reformer who starts out to emanci- 
pate humanity from the thrall of ignorance and blind- 
ness must not expect either thanks or gratitude, for his 
services are rarely rated at their true value. Instead, 
he must be content with the satisfaction his conscience 
affords him. And a prophet is without honor in his 
own countr>\ 

LoNGWORTHY — I will think this matter over. 

Ransom — With the probable conclusion that the 
account can be satisfactorily adjusted? 

LoNGWORTHY — I will look into the case. 

Ransom — Thank you. I am glad I could inform 
you I was your father's well-wisher, bearing to him 
feelings of unvarying good will. And these moral 
sentiments are not of negative, but of positive virtue, 
for let me assure you that the feelings we bear toward 
one another, whether actuated by hostility and malevo- 
lence, or benignity, have a tremendous effectiveness on 
the lives of our fellowmen operating as they do for or 
against. Mr. Lx)ngworthy, Major Taring's exhortation, 
or "warning" as he calls it, has turned my thoughts 
in a new direction. As I contemplate what he said I 



ACT I 37 

am constrained to admit to my own mind the justice 
of his reasoning, and that his view-point is essentially 
sound, — that my daughter is entitled to opportunities. 
Yet how is it possible for me to open them to her when 
my means are so restricted I can give her neither social 
advantages nor the habiliments in which to make a fit- 
ting appearance? (Rises and takes a turn around the 
room.) The best thing for her, of course, is to get 
married to some sterling upright man who will take 
good care of her, give her an establishment and secure 
her from the annoyances of privations. The girl is 
quick-witted and adaptable and not without her share 
of feminine attractions, as you have seen, and she will 
do credit to any position in life she is called upon to 
assume. Her genealogical tree is indisputably excel- 
lent, — Pilgrim ancestors over in the Mayflower, great- 
great-grandfather on the maternal side Brigadier-Gen- 
eral in the Revolution, grandfather Lieutenant-Colonel 
in the war of the Rebellion. Unfortunately our House 
at present has fallen into decay, owing to the com- 
mercialized spirit of the times to which I am unalter- 
ably opposed and to which I stoutly refuse either to 
make concession or to surrender. Taking these things 
into consideration, I am confronted with the question, 
Where am I to find my daughter a suitable mate — one 
compatible with her traditions and superior education? 
{Pauses and regards Longworthyj who is listening in 
grave silence, his face noncommittal. Abruptly.) 
Suppose you marry her? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Starting violently.) I marry her! 

Ransom — Yes, why not? You are an honest chap, 
safe for any father to trust his daughter to, born and 



38 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

reared as you were in this town, of plain yet reliable 
parentage known to us all. Come, what do you say? 

LoNGWORTHY — ^Why ! . . . er! . . . 

Ransom — You are not already married? 

LoNGWORTHY — No. 

Ransom — ^Then why not accept this proposition? 

LoNGWORTHY — But I know nothing of your 
daughter, or of women, for that matter. When I lived 
here I was too poor and too busy to go about, and as 
I never went to places where young people congre- 
gated I missed becoming acquainted with girls. And 
afterwards, when I left, my life was so roving and un- 
certain amidst such rough associations, with only ad- 
venturers for companions, I was rarely brought in con- 
tact with even questionable women, and never refined 
ones. 

Ransom — That doesn't militate against you, on the 
other hand it is in your favor you have not trifled 
your affections away on many affairs. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) I am too earnest for 
that. I have too much respect for the sex. 

Ransom — I take it, then, that you are not constitu- 
tionally averse to marriage, rather that your failure 
to enter upon the relation is due to lack of opportunity 
only. 

LoNGWORTHY — You might say that. 

Ransom — You are the sort of chap that a girl could 
unconditionally repose her confidence in. I don't know 
where I could find a man better fitted for the job of 
matrimony. 

LoNGWORTHY — I am no longer a young man and 
your daughter is a mere slip of a maid. 



ACT I 39 

Ransom — Pshaw! What matter so long as the 
years are not added up against her side of the ac- 
count? Mere slips of maids need husbands of stable 
years and judgment as balance wheels. I was fifteen 
years the senior of that child's mother and we never 
found it was a serious obstacle to our happiness. 

LoNGWORTHY — Your daughter has lacked all ex- 
perience. She should be allowed her opportunity, and 
it is unfair to take her at a disadvantage. 

Ransom — Nonsense ! 

LoNGWORTHY — ^Would she want to be sought by 
an old middle-aged chap? 

Ransom — Ask her and find out. 

LoNGWORTHY — Such a cut-and-dried method, lack- 
ing all sentiment, of forcing myself on her wouldn't do 
at all, and would prejudice any girl of refined suscepti- 
bilities. It is a woman's right to be wooed and fairly 
won. 

Ransom — I have stated to you frankly the condi- 
tions of the case and how impossible it is for me, situ- 
ated as I am, to do anything for her. She will have 
to go to seed if she depends on her father to give her 
social opportunities that would conduce to a chance 
at marriage such as she is entitled to look for. If 
you want to accept my proposition you have my full- 
est sanction to go ahead. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Risinff.) I beg of you not to reveal 
the slightest inkling of this conversation to your 
daughter. It would be the greatest injustice to her 
and to me. 

Ransom — ^Ah! (Smiles.) Don't give yourself any 
uneasiness on that score. . . . Must you go? 



40 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

(Accompanies him to the door.) Don't forget about 
that matter, as it has got to be settled directly. Come 
again. 

LoNGWORTHY — Good night. 

Exit. 

(Ransom returns to the table, pours out a glassful 
of ivine and drinks it off in one gulp. Inhales a deep 
breath. Slowly ivalks across the room, opens an inner 
door and passes through it.) 

Curtain. 



ACT II 

Scene same as Act I. 

A fire is burning in the grate. 

Time — Early evening of October, five months later. 

The rising curtain discloses Mrs. Pleione N earing 
on the floor on her knees carefully measuring the hem 
of the skirt she is fitting to Irene Ransom, who stands 
straight and motionless. 

{Mrs. Nearing is a little past forty, slight, erect, 
trim, of figure with quick movements and turns of the 
head resembling a little bird. Her brown graying hair, 
combed demurely, is of a satin smoothness. Her en- 
tire appearance is of extreme neatness. She takes 
from a tiny round cushion pins, which she uses to 
secure the hem as she folds it to her satisfaction.) 

Scene I 

Mrs. Nearing — {In a crisp decided voice.) You 
must refrain from raising your arms, for the least move- 
ment is likely to affect the hang. {Irene folds her 
hands.) And if there is a thing that offends one's 
eyes in a woman's get-up and just spoils her whole 
appearance it is a skirt that doesn't hang true. It 
gives her straight away an air of slovenliness. Now 

41 



42 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

turn, girlie, very slowly. {She bends lower, resting 
her weight on her hands, and peers critically at the 
bottom of the skirt as Irene slowly revolves. With 
a deep-drawn sigh.) There, that's the best we've 
done yet, 

Irene — It's awfully good of you to spend your time 
taking such pains to have me look decent. You are 
the first woman, Mrs. Nearing, who ever manifested 
any interest in me. 

Mrs. Nearing — Perhaps some others would if you 
had given them the opportunity. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) They didn't evince 
any desire to be given an opportunity. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Carefully measuring.) I want 
you to know how to make your own skirts and to do 
easy dressmaking, and I must say you have responded 
remarkably to my efforts in learning how to use your 
needle. 

Irene — It's such fun ! I had never been shown be- 
fore the slightest thing about sewing. My mother 
died when I was so wee and small that I was not old 
enough to be taught anything and I have had to dress 
as best I could. 

Mrs. Nearing — You forlorn little mouse, how you 
needed a mother! Well, you are coming on fine. I 
never saw such improvement as you have made in your 
dress since I took you in hand. You are ver)^ apt and 
quick, Irene. It was a shame for a pretty graceful 
figure like yours to be ruined by bagg>- ill-fitting 
skirts. {Smooths the skirt over the hips.) Neatness 
is the very first essential to a woman desiring to be at- 
tractive, and what woman doesn't want to be attrac- 



ACT II 43 

tive! And cleanliness is next to godliness, you know. 

Irene — {In a derisive voice.) Oh, godliness! 

Mrs. Nearing — ^And when we get you all fixed up 
you will go to church with me next Sunday. 

Irene — I don't go to church. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Pausing in her pinning.) It's 
high time you did. 

Irene — I never was in a church. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Raising her hands, and in a voice 
of horror.) Oh, my dear, how awful, how barbarous 
to think of a girl brought up in a civilized commu- 
nity among Christian people to be so neglected. 

Irene — I am not neglected as concerns education, 
Mrs. Nearing. I am an illuminata. 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, dear me, what can that be? 

Irene — ^A choicely enlightened person intellectually 
and spiritually. My father has taken every sort of 
pains to teach me. He's an eclectic and of the esoteric 
class, and so am I. 

Mrs. Nearing — Just listen to that! You poor 
unfortunate babe ! At an age when you should only be 
thinking of innocently enjoying yourself, to be satu- 
rated with dry as dust learning. 

Irene — Poppie has been studying Oriental culture 
and religions for thirty-five years. 

Mrs. Nearing — {In a voice of puzzled surprise.) 
Religions? But there is only one religion, my dear. 

Irene — Oh, indeed, there are many, Mrs. Nearing, 
of which I can mention, Confucianism, Buddhism, 
Brahmanism, Taoism, Mohammedism and Judaism. 

Mrs. Nearing — Yet there is only one that is the 
genuine, the true and accepted by right-minded people. 



44 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Irene — They all say that of theirs. Haven't you 
ever heard of the Ten Great Reh'gions? I must find 
you that book. 

Mrs. Nearing — I couldn't possibly read such a 
blasphemous book. It would certainly bring down on 
me retribution from On High. 

Irene — It isn't blasphemous. It was written by a 
good pious man, — a Unitarian minister. 

Mrs. Nearing — A member of that infidel sect! 
Oh, you hapless girl, I entreat you don't say any more! 
It frightens me just to think of you harboring in your 
young mind such wicked ideas. If you should die to- 
night yours would be a lost soul. 

Irene — {Laughing musically.) I am not worried. 

Mrs. Nearing — {In shocked tones.) You ought 
to be if you had any realization of your danger. 



Enter Joel Longu'orthy. 

LoNGWORTHY — What has so excited you, Pleione? 

Mrs. Nearing — This child has such unspeakable 
ideas about sacred things. 

Irene — Because I told her there are other religions 
in the world besides the one she happens to know about. 

Mrs. Nearing — Then they are false — spurious. 

Irene — {With spirit.) According to your orthodox 
opinions I suppose they are. 

Mrs. Nearing — This misguided child is worse than 
a heretic — she is a perfect heathen. 

Irene — Thank you, I am not a perfect heathen. 
I do my own thinking for myself. 



ACT II 45 

Mrs. Nearing — You are too young to do your own 
thinking. You should be docile and take with humil- 
ity what wiser heads have laid down for you to 
receive. 

Irene — It is you who are an ignoramus, never 
looking into anything, and accepting it all on trust. 
If you had been born and reared in Turkey you 
would have been the most bigoted sort of a Moham- 
medan. Because you choose to shut your eyes to 
everything outside the ideas you have been brought up 
to, don't for a moment suppose there are lacking mil- 
lions of people who have other beliefs that they hold 
sacred as you do yours. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Excitedly.) You can finish this 
skirt without further help from me. This is the thanks 
I get for trying to do you a service. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Gently.) Come, come! 

{Irene unhooks and drops the skirt to the floor. 
Mrs. Nearing catches it up and flings it passionately 
over a chair. Irene goes to the sofa and takes up 
her old skirt lying there and puts it on.) 

LoNGWORTHY — {In a quiet restraining voice to 
Mrs. Nearing, who has reached the door.) Wait a 
minute, Pleione. {Mrs. Nearing with flushed cheeks 
and sparkling eyes turns and faces him.) You both 
are entitled to your own ideas, — that is the right of 
every individual, — and also you both are bound to 
have toleration for one another's opinions and to re- 
spect each other's convictions. If you would try to 
exercise a little forbearance instead of passing severe 
judgment on views contrary to those you hold, there 
would not be ill-feeling because you fail to agree. 



46 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Mrs. Nearing — But her ideas are more than 
wrong, they are monstrous! 

LoNGWORTHY — In your judgment yes, whilst in 
hers yours are unreasonably narrow and obstinate. 

Mrs. Nearing — Joe, I am astonished a brother of 
mine would countenance let alone uphold anybody in 
infidelism ! 

LoNGWORTHY — I am not upholding either of you. 
I am simply maintaining the right of free thought 
and urging moderation of judgment in the matter of 
others' thinidng. 

Mrs. Nearing — I shall feel it my bounden duty to 
turn her from the error of her ideas and convert her to 
the true belief. 

LoNGWORTHY — If your conscience assures you she is 
wrong in the opinions she holds, it is your privilege to 
try by fair means of persuasion to show her her error; 
but if, after you have tried all legitimate means in 
your power, you find your arguments do not bring her 
to see things in your light, then it is the part of good 
sense to stop. To insist further after that is to breed 
irritation and resentment in her when she is unable 
to be convinced. {Smiling.) Until one of you is 
won over, can't you declare a truce? 

Irene — {Coming forward.) I am ready for an 
armistice. ( Throws her arms around Airs. Nearing' s 
neck.) I am sorry I spoke so to you. You are the 
only woman who ever tried to do me a kindness in 
all my life and honestly and truly I am grateful. 
{Kisses Mrs. Nearing on both cheeks.) 

Mrs. Nearing — You are not to blame, child, for 
your bringing up. 



ACT II 47 

Enter Peter Taggart. 

{He starts back as he perceives Mrs. N earing and 
then straightens himself. She also stands motionless 
and rigid.) 

Taggart — {Stiffly.) How are you? 

Mrs. Nearing — {Stiffly.) Good evening. 

Taggart — {More stiffly.) This is an unexpected 
circumstance finding you here. 

Mrs, Nearing — I regret to have so unpleasantly 
surprised you. I should not have presumed to intrude 
my presence in a neighbor's house if I had thought it 
would prove so disconcerting to you. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Mildly to Taggart.) My sister 
has come to live once more among you and it is to 
be hoped old difEerences and misunderstandings can 
be forgotten and old friendships restored. 

Taggart — I did all that was in a man's power to 
explain matters and clear up the misunderstanding, 
and I am not suffering any qualms of conscience for 
failure to do my part. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Tossing her head.) I did all 
that any self-respecting girl could be asked to do that 
would conduce to bring back relations of harmony. 

Taggart — {With withering scorn.) You did! 

Mrs, Nearing — I certainly did. And if, after my 
honest efforts at reconciliation you chose to ignore them, 
the blame wasn't mine. 

Taggart — {Stepping close to her.) How dare you 
stultify yourself like that! Didn't I come the very 
next morning and lay the entire matter before you, 
tell you how it came about, and try to square myself 



48 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

with you once again? And how did you treat my 
attempts? By listening obstinately unmoved and in- 
credulous and ending by dismissing me from the house, 
giving then and there proof of the amount of justice 
in your composition! You call that honest efforts 
at reconciliation ! My God ! That is about as reason- 
able as you always were! 

Mrs. Nearing — (Spunkily.) Look here, Peter 
Taggart, you shall not put me in the wrong when 
you know all the time I made amends. No sooner 
had you gone from the house than a revulsion of 
feeling rushed over me. I was sorry for my stubborn- 
ness. I sat right down on the spur of the moment 
and dashed off a little note of apology, telling you 
how I regretted being so ungracious and unyielding, 
and for you to come back in the evening. It was 
then nearly noon and about the time for the mail to 
be sorted for the out-going trains and for local de- 
livery. As I looked from the window I saw Dave 
Ransom swinging along the street. I ran out on the 
porch and inquired if he were going up-town. He 
said he was on his way. I then asked him if it would 
be too much bother for him to post my letter. He 
said he would be only, too glad to do it, and I gave 
it to him and you received it by the two o'clock 
deliver>\ 

Taggart — {In a queer strained voice.) You say 
you wrote me a letter? 

Mrs. Nearing — Yes, I do say so. 

Taggart — You are quite sure? 

Mrs. Nearing — Of course I am sure. Did you 
ever know me to tell you a falsehood? 



ACT II 49 

Taggart — (Slowly.) I never received such a 
letter from you. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Putting her hand with a be- 
wildered gesture to her brow.) That is very strange. 

Irene — {With an embarrassed laugh.) The one 
and only influence that can be drawn from this puz- 
zling circumstance is that poppie forgot to post Mrs. 
Nearing's letter and later lost or mislaid it. He never 
was to be depended on to do an errand, he is so absent- 
minded. Once I gave him a letter to post, and he' 
carried it five weeks around in his pocket! 

( There is a brief impressive silence charged with 
meaning, Taggart and Mrs. Nearing looking in dumb 
agony in one another's eyes.) 

Mrs. Nearing — {With an attempt at cheerful- 
ness.) Well, I must be going. I left my supper 
dishes on the table to run over here a moment to 
fit Irene's skirt, and now I must hurry back and get 
them washed and put away. 

Taggart — {Following her to the door.) I will 
walk over with you. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^You needn't trouble, Peter. It's 
early in the evening yet and I am no longer so young 
and skittish as to be scared of my shadow, or to ap- 
prehend a man is going to jump out at me from every 
dark corner and alleyway. 

Exeunt both. 

Scene II 

Irene — {To Longworthy.) How strange that my 
father should unwittingly be the instrument that kept 



50 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

those two apart all these years! If it had not been 
his neglect to post that letter they would in all prob- 
ability have made up their quarrel, 

LoNGWORTHY — Supersensitive pride stood in the 
way of either one making any more advances. 

Irene — But it was really poppie who was the direct 
cause that prevented them from becoming reconciled. 
They were engaged? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Slowly.) Ycs, they were engaged. 

Irene — Oh, what a pity that their happiness should 
have been allowed to become the sport of mere cir- 
cumstances when the least thing going awry meant 
its utter extinction! 

LoNGWORTHY — It indeed hung on an uncertain 
thread ! 

Irene — And she took the other man just to show 
him she didn't care! 

LoNGWORTHY — To show him she didn't care and — 
that she could get married. 

Irene — What was the trouble about anj'^vay? 

LoNGWORTHY — It Originated from a very insignifi- 
cant cause, and when one comes to look at it dis- 
passionately it is obvious the real difficulty lay in a 
want of tact and delicacy on the one side and an excess 
of jealous exaction on the other. The innocent occa- 
sion of their estrangement was a young girl who by 
reason of being unattractive and shy was relegated 
at parties almost entirely to the role of spectator. The 
poor wall-flower, discouraged from being so long over- 
looked, had about come to the decision she would give 
over social gatherings. Peter, who has a generous 
heart, felt sorry for this unfortunate girl and out of 



ACT II 51 

chivalrous pity made up his mind that if she should 
appear at another dance he would pay her some atten- 
tion. The evening came, he took her out on the floor 
a number of times and when she left the hall before 
the others had done dancing, accompanied her home 
intending, of course, to return in time to escort 
Pleione. You must understand he was in the habit of 
bringing and taking Pleione home from all the dances. 
Now his neglect of her, however excellent the motives 
actuating him in regard to the other girl, caused a great 
deal of comment among the young folks. She found 
herself in a ludicrously conspicuous position, exposed 
to the ridicule of her mates who rallied her merrily 
on being cut out by this wall-flower. Under their mock- 
ing jests she grew indignant and resentful and chose 
to consider that a deliberate affront had been put on 
her. When Peter returned from his self-imposed mis- 
sion of gallantry before the dance was over, she had 
vanished. That is the story in a nut shell. 

Irene — And so they missed their goal! Do you 
know, Mr. Longworthy, I believe there is a Fate that 
controls us humans and determines the combination 
of circumstances whether auspicious or adverse that 
shall surround us, for some are destined always just 
to miss their heart's desires. You can call it luck or 
what you will, but the fact is demonstrated every day 
that certain people are fortunate, with everything they 
undertake sure to go well and with little resistance, 
with everything they want sure to come to pass and 
with little trouble; whilst others who strive most 
earnestly are doomed to failure and disappointment. 
They encounter so many obstacles in the path of their 



52 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

undertakings that sooner or later are bound to frus- 
trate their designs. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) What experience has 
confirmed so young a maid in this philosophy? 

Irene — Oh, I've noticed a lot of things right here 
in this small field of observation! I have seen in- 
ofifensive people condemned to suffering and poverty 
and misfortune on misfortune, and others all unde- 
serving, riding high in prosperity. I know, for in- 
stance, in my own case I am not intended for happiness 
or success because so far not anything nice ever came 
my way, and when I want to effect anything something 
is sure to come up and prevent it being fulfiDed. 

LoNGWORTHY — Then soon the wheel is bound to 
turn. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) I haven't much hope 
it will turn as I want it to. Shall we sit down while 
we talk a little? {She goes and seats herself before 
the fire. Longworthy draws a chair near her.) Now 
my father longs to be a writer. It is his life dream to 
be known in the world, to bring before it what he calls 
his message. He has tried and tried, but the benevolent 
designs he cherishes for its good aren't appreciated. 
Perhaps the trouble is he knows too much. 

Longworthy — {Smiling.) Isn't that a paradox 
remembering that 
"Ignorance is the curse of God, 
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven!" 

Irene — It sounds absurd, I know, but listen! He 
has been storing up wisdom all his days, his informa- 
tion on all subjects is vast. Whenever he has recourse 
to his pen in order to give expression to some views 



ACT II 53 

of his own, immediately there is called to his mind an 
association of ideas belonging to pet writers whom he 
reads and admires. He makes allusion, of course, in 
that particular case to what has been written by famous 
thinkers in regard to it. After awhile his article or 
essay has become so long and involved and full of 
quotations and references to this author and that author 
that there is hardly left an inch of space for a genuine 
thought of his own in it. It is a sort of symposium. 
Can't you see where excessive knowledge in a writing 
man may become a detriment to originality? 

LoNGWORTHY — ^When the originality tends to be 
thin. 

Irene — {Naively.) I think, Mr. Longworthy, what 
ideas you have are very original, indeed. 

Longworthy — {Laughing.) You mean because 
they are so few. 

Irene — ^They are so large and honest, yes and so 
spontaneous. You haven't so steeped yourself in lit- 
erature that you are become a repository of learned 
ideas. 

Longworthy — If I haven't steeped myself in it, it 
is not from a lack of love for it. I have a few books 
of which I am very fond. I crave learning and my 
want is owing to the fact that I have not had suf- 
ficient time to stock up with it. Mine is the knowl- 
edge of life rather than that of books as in your 
father's case. 

Irene — ^Two kinds of knowledge. He is reading, 
reading always. And reading maketh a full man. But 
to what avail if it does no one any good? I want the 
knowledge of life and I would gladly trade off all 



54 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

my book learning for experiences which are real. I 
suppose Bacon meant by a full man one chock-full-up 
with ideas; but to me it means something utterly dif- 
ferent. It means to be full of nobility and courage and 
daring. And what's the use of being an educated man 
if one's wisdom doesn't bring out those attributes? He 
might as well be the most illiterate. But even sup- 
posing one does have them, how is he to show their pos- 
session in a stagnant commonplace little hole like this? 
LoNGWORTHY — Even here sooner or later the op- 
portunity will come. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) You think so? I 
never knew any one here to do anything fine and 
magnanimous enough to stand out of the ordinary. 
LoNGWORTHY — Such acts have been done here, but 
so quietly attention was not directed to him who did 
them. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) I can't think of any 
heroic personage here. Such places as this are not 
favorable to the promotion of noble deeds. Oh, I 
am stifled here! I am so weary of this uneventful 
existence I lead, each day precisely like the one before 
it and all of them drab. You just can't imagine! 
I want some interest, something worth while! I do 
so long to go where something will happen that is 
unexpected and exciting. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Regarding her attentively.) What 
particular place have you in mind? 

Irene — Oh, not any special place! Big live things 
happen in cities, don't they? 

LoNGWORTHY — Perhaps they are more liable to hap- 
pen there. Would you like to attend some nice 



ACT II 55 

seminary? 

Irene — ^The very thought of being cooped up in a 
boarding-school with a lot of lady teachers and a 
pack of inane girls twittering about fellows, is repel- 
lent. What have I said that you find amusing? 

LoNGWORTHY — Isn't it perfectly natural for girls 
to twitter about fellows? 

Irene — I never bother about them. I never have 
any occasion to bother about them. 

LoNGWORTHY — Some day you will. {Ponders a 
few moments.) I was thinking that some plan might 
be brought about by which you could live six months 
or more in New York and see a little life. 

Irene — {Joyously, and clasping her hands.) The 
very thing! {Her face falls.) What's the use of 
talking about it? I haven't any money, and so it's 
out of the question. 

LoNGWORTHY — As regards the financial part, don't 
let it trouble you, for that can be easily arranged. 

Irene — {Knitting her brows.) I don't see. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) But I do. Do you 
know it is the one great satisfaction I have in life 
to see boys and girls enjoying the opportunities and 
pleasures of which in my youth I was deprived? I 
have assumed the privilege of being your friend. You 
can call me your god-father, if you wish. 

Irene — Then I adopt you. 

LoNGWORTHY — It is the other way. 

Irene — {Bending toward him.) I wish that the 
destiny that presides over birth and determines who 
shall be our parents had made you my real and truly 
father. 



56 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

LoNGWORTHY- — Why do you wish that? 

Irene — (Earnestly.) Because I am sure you would 
have been so indulgent to me and so kind and tender. 
Aren't big men always tender and protecting, — yes 
and patient because they are so slow? You would 
have thought of me first always and we should have 
been royal chums and devoted to one another, (Lays 
her hand impulsively on his arm.) I should have laid 
such store by you! (Ardently.) Oh, it would have 
been an ideal relationship! And you — now tell me, do 
you think you would have liked this prospect? 

LoNGWORTHY — Yes, to have loved you dearly. 

Irene — That, of course. It is a father's business 
to love his child. 

LoNGWORTHY — Do you want very much to be 
loved? 

Irene — In that way, you mean? 

LoNGWORTHY — In that way. 

Irene — Oh, don't I! My father has always been 
too deeply engrossed in his studies to spend much time 
in affection on me. 

LoNGWORTHY — He has spent time in teaching you. 

Irene — That 5'es, so that I will look up references 
for him and copy interminable manuscripts. 

LoNGWORTHY — Oh, not quite so bad as that! 

Irene — But I tell you it is true! He intends me 
to do that to the end of my days, and it wouldn't he 
so wearisome if it would ever get us an>^vhere, but 
it will not, for his manuscripts alwaj's come back! He 
hasn't any understanding of the things that concern 
and are dear to a girl, he has never taken the pains to 
enter into my feelings and desires, or to sympathize 



ACT II 57 

with my needs, and not for a moment does he stop 
to think that I have any aspirations of my own. Do 
you mind if I tell you these confidences? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Taking her hand in his.) Tell 
me freely what is in your heart. 

Irene — ^You would pardon me turning myself inside 
out to you if you knew I haven't a soul to talk to 
who has the slightest interest in me, or whom I could 
trust if they did have any. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Patting her hand gently.) You 
can trust me. 

Irene — I am just the very loneliest girl in this 
whole great world, I believe, Mr. Longworthy. I have 
led such a solitary life from the beginning, thrown 
back on myself for companionship, I did not go to 
school as did other children, instead was with my 
father in the study, and I was an old young child who 
never played with mates of my own years. Indeed, 
I didn't know how to play only as instinct prompted 
me, and my doll was my confidante. As I grew older 
I was self-conscious and broodingly sensitive and shrank 
from others, and the life we lived so queer and se- 
cluded in this great bare shell of a house didn't tend 
to draw young people to me. {Dreamily looks in the 
fire.) When I look at those little sportive flames now 
leaping lightly up, now sinking momentarily back only 
to dart joyously up again, dancing sprites as they are, I 
begin to see beautiful pictures. And in the strong bright 
glow beneath these fire elves, I can fancy without much 
effort of the imagination many strange things. And 
as I muse I behold there such wonderful visions of 
foreign scenes, — the mighty ocean expanse with its 



58 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

gorgeous sunset colors, its miraged cities, their domes 
and spires projected against an illusive horizon; and 
there arise majestic mountains, emerge deep lakes and 
verdant valleys, broad bosomed, tranquilly moving 
rivers on whose banks are stately mediaeval castles, 
thriving cities where people speak in unfamiliar tongues. 
As I gaze I see a future not drab and barren, but 
gay and splendid and crowded with interests, with 
myself moving in it, a lady in a lovely gown in a fine 
house with servants to wait upon me, an automobile 
and money — enough money not to take thought of the 
cost of anything I need or desire, but to be free of 
scrimpings and savings and self-denials for evermore! 
Do you know I have the idea if this could be more 
than a dream, a lovely anticipation, it would seem to me 
just as though I had been born over again an entirely 
different person, to live a new, a full, a glorious life! 
Oh, Mr. Longworthy, if it were not for these visions 
which divert the monotonous hours, these reveries which 
give me the solace of hope, I should die of sheer de- 
spair! {Breaks into a quick sob.) 

Longworthy — {Feelingly.) You so yearn to see 
the world? 

Irene — To travel, to experience the wonder of it, 
to know what it holds. But my visions are too good 
to be true! 

Longworthy — Extraordinary things sometimes do 
happen. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) Not to me. And 
some day the firelight which is company for me and 
soothes and entertains me, will only make me sad 
and moody. 



ACT II 59 

LoNGWORTHY — {Patting her hand.) A little pes- 
simist done with the hopes of life at twenty. One 
day Prince Charming will emerge from the glow and 
everything will be transformed. 

Irene — {Contemptuously.) Oh, Prince Charm- 
ing! I told you I am not bothering about fellows. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Lightly.) That's because you 
never had any. 

Irene — {Seriously.) You have guessed the truth 
and when I say I am not bothering it is because I don't 
have the chance to bother. I had neither brothers nor 
cousins and so am without any idea of what sort of 
creatures young men are, though I confess I am curious 
to know. But I am sure they wouldn't care to know 
what a girl of my sort is like. 

LoNGWORTHY — ^You don't want to get that idea in 
your little head. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) The worst of it is 
I can't get it out! 

{A series of loud insistent knocks are heard on the 
door.) 

Enter Major Faring with rolling gait partially sup- 
porting himself with his heavy cane. 

Scene III 

Major Faring — {In hearty cheerful tones.) 
Where's Dave, this evening? 

Irene — Poppie went out right after supper to the 
reading-room. He said he would only be gone a few 
minutes. 

Major Faring — I'll wait. He expects me. 



6o CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

(Takes off his coat and hangs it with his hat on the 
tree.) Good evening, Joe. Well, you two look snug 
an' cozy enough sittin' together there by the fireside. 
It's a pity to interrupt such comfort. Goin' to join 
us to-night? 

LoNGWORTHY — I thought I would. 

Major Faring — {Slapping his thigh.) That's the 
sensible decision, my boy. Don't deny yourself the ad- 
vantages an' pleasure of converse with your friends. 
Man is innately a social animal an' you're by nature 
no recluse. Be one among us! 

Reenter Peter Taggart with Ransom. 

Major Faring — {Calling out heartily.) Hello, 
comrades! I was half afraid Dave would get absorbed 
in some magazine an' be oblivious we existed, but 
here we are all together an' Irene here entertainin' a 
young man. It's her first caller if I don't miss my 
reckonin' ! {Ransom turns a sharp glance upon Long- 
worthy.) 

Irene — (Pointedly.) If it is, it's because I never 
have a chance to entertain a caller for myself with the 
house always occupied with its regular habitues. 

Major Faring — What, what! You don't mean 
its regular bores? 

Exit Irene ivith a disdainful toss of the head. 

Taggart — (Drawing from his breast pocket half a 
dozen cigars.) Here, Major. 

Major Faring — (With a shoiv of reluctance.) 
Really, now, it's my turn, you know. I can't always 
be acceptin' from you, Peter. 



ACT II 6i 

Taggart — {Passinff the cigars around.) Non- 
sense! You know my brand is better than yours. 

LoNGWORTHY — The treat is on me this time. 
(Goes to the tree and takes from his coat pocket a 
bottle. Holds it up before them.) 

Taggart — {Reading the label.) Alfonso & Hi- 
poleto Sancho. Vinos De Jerez. Amontillado Don 
Quixote. Sherry! By George, imported Spanish dry! 
We're highly favored, boys. (Smacks his lips.) 
{Longworthy produces a small corkscrew and removes 
the cork and pours the wine in glasses. They draw 
up chairs to the table.) 

Major Faring — {Sipping his wine with the linger- 
ing luxurious delight of an epicure.) This is comfy, 
what? I tell you, comrades, when I come to measure 
the things from which I derive most satisfaction, there 
is not anything in the world to me that can compare 
in downright enjoyment to these nightly seances of ours. 
I look forward to 'em as an oasis in the desert of 
daily life. They fill bright shinin' hours out of the 
monotonous vacant ones. An' when a chap after testin' 
out his capabilities an' learnin' about what he has 
to look for from the world, has reached middle life 
or old age, what particular hold has he left on things 
here below save his friends an' the interest he obtains 
from their society? If I had to be shut out from in- 
tercourse here an' be denied the fellership of you 
chaps, I should consider myself instead of the most 
privileged, the most sorely deprived of men. Here 
at these sessions we can discuss all friendly an' nice, 
secure from danger of trouble growin' out of it, all 
the important happenin's on the round earth, an' 



62 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

arrange its affairs as we think fittin' an' proper an* 
afford to pity the steerers at the helm for not knowin' 
enough to guide the ship of state right. Moreover 
we can criticize to our hearts' content the doin's of 
those bosses of our own feedin' steady at the admin- 
istration crib at Washington, for the right to judge 
even the highest an' speak plain out our thoughts on 
every subject pertainin' to our governin' are among 
the fundamental prerogatives of this constitution. An', 
my God, how precious it is an' what comfort we get 
lambastin' those set above us in authority! I tell you, 
comrades, these meetin's of ours are not only a high 
source of instruction an' profit, but of enjoyment the 
most convivial, an' I appreciate 'em to the fullest ex- 
tent. 

Taggart — (Slyly.) And no uneasiness experienced 
about overstaying time. How about the Captain, to- 
night ? 

Major Faring — My wife? {Sinking his voice 
confidentially.) Say, what do you think, she's gone 
to help friend Mrs. Oldboys nurse her husband, who 
was taken down this week with grip, an' I am left 
alone to batch it for the time bein'. Come, what do 
you know about that? 

Taggart — How do you like being deserted? 

Major Faring — Well, there arc compensations. 
It's a change, anyway. Dave an' Peter, you two old 
Mavericks, you don't properly appreciate the liberty 
you enjoy from bein' unclaimed, or half realize the 
drawbacks you are free from through your escape 
from double harness. 

Taggart — Oh, I don't know! Marriage isn't the 



ACT II 63 

worst lot that could befall a chap. 

Major Faring — {In simulated astonishment.) 
What, a confirmed bachelor an' woman-hater makes 
an admission like that! 

Taggart — Marriage brings its own compensations. 
It saves a chap from feeling lonely and forlorn as he 
is getting on in years and gives him all sorts of lively 
interests. 

Major Faring — Do my ears serve me right? 

Taggart — ^As you once said here, a wife is a mighty 
useful article to have around the house when a chap 
has sore throat and aguish chills chasing over him. 

Major Faring — It's true as God's gospel, Peter. 
Whatever her faults of austerity an' overdiscipline, 
when it comes right down to hardtack my Letitia is 
the most loyal an' devoted soul a feller could ask for. 
Her intentions are well meant an' I've no complaint 
as regards 'em. Joe, haven't you any contribution to 
make on this here wife question? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) I fear I am not prop- 
erly qualified to speak on so complicated a question. 

Major Faring — Of course you lack experience, 
still you must have a theory of wimmin an' wives in 
general as Peter does. Joe, you are about as reticent 
an' close-mouthed as Honest Abe an' that man was a 
Sphinx for knowin' enough to keep his own counsel 
when it was to the best advantage of those with 
whose interests he was intrusted. I have an idea that, 
like him, you do a lot of thinkin' on various subjects 
without much expressin' on it. You must have had 
in your wanderin's around the world experiences worth' 
relatin'. Come, won't you tell us about some of your 



64 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

thrillin' hair-breadth escapes? 

LoNGWORTHY — I would Willingly if I had ever had 
any hair-breadth escapes. 

Major Faring — That beats anything I have heard. 
How did you miss 'em? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) They didn't come my 
way, that's all. 

Major Faring — {Incredulously.^ Do you mean 
to tell me a feller livin' among all kinds of rough 
characters with desperadoes sprinkled in for good 
measure, didn't some time or other come in for a 
knock down row or a stiletto thrust? {Longworthy 
shakes his head.) 

Major Faring — But how did you escape such con- 
tingencies ? 

Longworthy — By not being afraid. 

Taggart — ^You were so armed to the teeth, I sup- 
pose, that they stood in healthy fear of you. 

Longworthy — {Taking out a small white-handled 
knife from his pocket and exhibiting it to Taggart.) I 
never had at any time a weapon on my person during 
those fifteen years of roving and living in camps con- 
sorting with the rudest elements of society, larger 
than this knife. 

Major Faring — ^Well I'll be jiggered! {Fills his 
glass from the bottle.) 

Taggart — {Curiously.) This becomes interesting. 
If unarmed, how did you manage, then, to inspire 
such awe as to be immune at all times from the danger 
common to every man in your peculiar circumstances? 

Longworthy — {Calmly.) By not being afraid. 

Taggart — ^Then you either intimidated them in 



ACT II 65 

some other manner, or hypnotized them. 

LoNGWORTHY — I did neither. 

Major Faring — But, my dear feller, then how in 
the name of common sense did you control 'em an' 
save yourself from bein' stuck to the death? 

LoNGWORTHY — In the gravest crisis I never lost 
my sense of absolute fearlessness, my faith in my own 
ability to resist danger. By not forfeiting my self- 
command I was therefore enabled to control the situa- 
tion, however crucial it might be. My power consisted 
simply in that alone. 

Taggart — You depended on your great physique, 
your mighty strength of arm, to properly inspire them 
with respect. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Smiling.) Though I should have 
used it in emergency, I did not have occasion. 

Taggart — ^This is very remarkable. 

Ransom — His weapon was purely psychic, a sub- 
duing of the passions of those less disciplined over 
whom his tranquil restrained mind gained the mastery, 

Taggart — Now that we are on this subject it is 
not out of place to tell you, Mr. Longworthy, from 
the first meeting with you since your return amongst 
us here, I have been singularly impressed with some- 
thing strangely out of the ordinary emanating from 
your presence, that something as near as I can come 
to describing what is so queer and bafBingly indefin- 
able, of the nature of a pervasive influence that dwells 
in you and goes out from you, subtle, invisible but 
absolutely compelling! At the same time I have been 
cudgeling my brains to puzzle out what this peculiar- 
ity of yours really consisted in and why this curious 



66 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

power of yours over me, you have so infused in me 
faith in your wonderful strength and ability to 
dominate any circumstance that might on the spur of 
the moment unexpectedly arise, that I am pretty fairly 
convinced whatever untoward thing might happen if 
I were in your company, I should not be bereft of my 
self-possession. Friends, how am I to make you see 
what I feel and am groping to express? Well, let 
us suppose Joe and I were strolling along the hum- 
drum streets of this town and the inhabitants all at 
once, it being election time, or some other cataclysmic 
occasion, took leave of their bovine serenity and ran 
amuck, flying at one another's throats, attacking every- 
thing and everybody — in short, turning themselves 
into a mob of frantic madmen — and we two found 
ourselves in the thick of this fray. Now, Til hazard 
dollars to doughnuts, Joe Longworthy would either 
quell that riot or make his way out of it without 
getting his head broke! 

Major Faring — Are you flattered, Joe, at bein' 
deemed a feller possessed of a special, a preternatural 
faculty ? 

Longworthy — {Smiling.) Not unduly, because 
I believe it is within the power of every man who tries 
to inspire such confidence and to exercise such authority 
of restraint. 

Taggart — It is within the power of about one man 
in ten thousand men. 

Longworthy — ^You underestimate the average will 
power of men. 

Major Faring — I have said all along, Joe would 
have made a Number One-A soldier. 



ACT II 67 

Ransom — He can have his opportunity now by 
offering himself to the Teutons. 

Taggart — You mean by offering himself to those 
whose traditions, mother speech and literature he 
shares, and who are forced to this struggle for the 
preservation of their own national integrity ^and the 
rights of less sovereign peoples to exist! 

Major Faring — Forced to this struggle for the 
preservation of human rights an' human liberties! 
When, back in the sixties, we Northern men poured 
out our blood like water in order to save the Union 
from disintegration, we thought ours a tremendous 
conflict, for the rebels, upborne by a sense of injustice, 
were brave as lions, full of darin' an' with a dogged 
tenacity of purpose that was downed only by the 
overwhelmin' odds of our troops an' unlimited finan- 
cial resources an' food, an' the cuttin' off of their sup- 
plies an' trade by the biggest blockade the world ever 
saw! With antagonists of such a temper we gained 
our cause by the exertion of our utmost efforts an' at 
a sacrifice of limb an' life truly terrible. But what 
was that conflict to this colossal affair with millions of 
men engaged on all sides an' its horrors increased ten- 
fold by all sorts of modern mechanisms an' devilish 
contrivances that destroy property an' mutilate an' put 
men out of business the rest of their days when they 
don't exterminate 'em altogether ! I tell you, comrades, 
it staggers the imagination. 

Ransom — It's the most stupendous spectacle the 
world, ancient or modern, has ever been treated to, and 
I doubt if its like will be exhibited again. 

Long worthy — A consummation devoutly to be 



68 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

wished. 

Major Faring — It's as wicked a war as was ever 
hatched up through the self-interest of those who in- 
stigated it an' who are directly responsible for untold 
sufferin' an' misfortune that will be visited on more 
than one generation. 

Ransom — It's been on the way a long time. 

Major Faring — {Significantly.) There I can 
agree with you, Dave. If it did come to the rest of 
the world like a bolt from the blue, it was brewin' 
some forty years odd, — in short since the last big 
upsettin' of Europe in 1870! 

Taggart — It's a great capitalistic contest. 

Ransom — It was inevitable. 

Major Faring — An' why? Because of the jealousy 
of one aggressive domineerin' power evolvin' too fast 
for its own good, against a neighbor whose supremacy 
has not been of one century's duration only, an' who 
has been absolute mistress of the seas since the defeat 
of the Spanish Armada in 1588! This upstart power 
sprung into the full growth of an empire like a mush- 
room over night, so to speak, couldn't rest contented 
because it was obsessed by the idea it must push itself 
in the preeminent place occupied by its neighbor, an' 
that effectuated, play the Napoleon game over again! 

Taggart — One trouble is, there isn't enough land 
in Europe to satisfy the greed of the Big Five. 

LoNGWORTHY— To my thinking, the ordinary rea- 
sons brought forth in explanation are superficial, and 
the underlying cause is something entirely different. 
It is a war waged to determine which nation's ideals 
shall survive; which intellectual, moral and political 



ACT II 69 

pattern shall persist; in short, whether Teutonism or 
Anglo-Saxonism is to prevail. 

Taggart — I hadn't considered it in that light. 

Ransom — It will be the survival of the fittest. 

LoNGWORTHY — In the long run, yes. 

Ransom — ^And the fittest is the power that has been 
demonstrating to the world right along its claim to 
ascendancy by virtue of superior excellencies in its 
every line of endeavor, and in this struggle, thus far, 
a matchless virility. 

Taggart — Not virility, but preparedness! 

LoNGWORTHY — {Mildly.) The conclusion is not 
yet. 

Ransom — It is foreshadowed. 

Major Faring — You're committed to the side of 
military domination — you're Krupp-Kaiser, Dave! 

Ransom — {Stiffly.) I beg your pardon. I'm 
strictly neutral. {A burst of Homeric laughter.) 

Taggart — Nonsense, Dave! Why aren't you 
honest enough to come out in your true colors? 

Major Faring — {Mockingly.) Kool-toor! 

Ransom — You can sneer, Kit; it will prevail. 

Major Faring — Not so, for you can't make a 
thing permanently hold that is imposed on you against 
your will an' your strongest convictions, I don't care 
how big the power of coercion behind it. There is a 
bigger power that moves men than the Krupp-Kaiser 
force, with all its devices an' appliances, an' that is 
the power which works invisibly in the brains an' 
hearts of men until it manifests itself at last in their 
ideals an' their principles. An' when those ideals an' 
principles make for progress an' civilization on this 



70 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

planet, you aren't goin' to easily uproot 'em in order 
to put in their places those that are outworn an' retro- 
gressive. I make no secret of where I stand, I am 
proud to range myself on the side that is aidin' the 
world to move in its steady course toward that per- 
fection in condition of the human race that w^ll be 
attained only through individual freedom an' enlight- 
enment. What's gained by teeterin' around an' pre- 
tendin' one is something he isn't? There isn't a per- 
son worthy of the name of an independent thinkin' 
man of sense an' conscience who hasn't his judgment 
formed in this matter an' whose sympathies aren't 
ranged on one side or the other. The only thing 
that can be asked of us fellers over here is to remain 
neutral in our acts. 

Ransom — {Coldly.) No man is licensed to tell 
me in my own house, against my protestations, I am 
unneutral. 

Taggart — But, Dave, in any argument that comes 
up, we can't help but notice you throw the weight of 
your reasoning on the German side. And so why 
not be frank about it? 

Major Faring — {Bitterly.) He's ashamed, I sup- 
pose, to come right out an' boldly uphold a nation 
whose overgrown army has been allowed to ruthlessly 
violate an unoffendin', helpless little country, kill its 
citizens who dared resist the invasion, run families 
out in the streets, destroy their homes an' make 'em 
wanderers on the face of the earth! 

Taggart — ^Aw, never mind. Major! You are an 
old warrior, and your enthusiastic championship of the 
wronged makes you too strongly partisan. 



ACT II 71 

Ransom — I ask you to take that back, Kit. 

Major Faring — {Belli fferently.) 1 won't take it 
back when it's God's truth! An' I must say right 
here whilst we are on the subject, I am surprised at 
the attitude you take in this matter, Dave. For a 
feller brought up in a land of the free, amidst demo- 
cratic institutions, to put a slap in the face of progress 
by endorsin' a country whose political ideals are three 
hundred years behind the times, shows atavism in his 
nature ! 

Ransom — ^This rubbish of democracy — ^what have 
we made by it? 

Major Faring — ^What haven't we? We enjoy 
opportunities at every turn in the road an' are favored 
every way to rise in the world. What show would you 
or I have had over there to get an education, to get 
into business or politics, or make a decent livin' ? The 
poorest, most obscure of us feels he is some conse- 
quence; that he counts just as much in our government 
as the richest, an' that helps give a feller confidence 
an' self-respect an' puts him on his mettle if he's got 
anything in him atall, to make the most of himself. 
Look here, Dave, you can't deny this experiment of 
ours, the grandest ever tried in history, has worked 
out amazin'ly well, an' the thought back of it is the 
most darin' an' comprehensive ever born out of the 
brain of man! 

Ransom — Oh, prating cant! 

Major Faring — ^Well, all I've got to say is a feller 
whose forbears left him a heritage of splendid liberty 
an' patriotism as glorious as ours, won through blood 
an' self-sacrifice, who will go back on the principles to 



72 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

which he is born, is no good American! 

Ransom — {Springing to his feet.) You dare cast 
a slur on my Americanism! I will teach you in my 
house to talk like that! {Strikes him full in the face 
a brutal blow.) 

Major Faring — {With a gasping cry.) Are you 
plumb crazy, Dave Ransom? {Reels back.) 

Taggart — {Overturning his chair as he leaps for- 
ward and in a ringing voice.) You coward, you con- 
temptible cur ! Are you without any sense of decency ? 
What do you mean by striking an old man? 

Ransom — {Contemptuously.) You swelling little 
game-cock! What are you going to do about it? 

Taggart — {Breathing hard.) I will teach you not 
to lay your hands on him, you damned brute! {Dou- 
bles his fists and rushes upon Ransom. Chairs are 
overturned, glasses thrown from the table in the 
scuffle. They grapple furiously. Longworthy inter- 
poses himself between them and parts them. His form 
expands and rises to its full majestic proportions. His 
deep eyes glow. Breathing hard, they pause and are 
held by his co?npelling gaze. There is a silence so 
charged ivith suspense that the seconds pulsate with it; 
then he speaks in an imperious voice.) 

Longworthy — I entreat you to act as sane beings. 
This devastating war, the greatest calamity in the 
history of man, is three thousand miles distant, and 
not anything we as private individuals think about 
it or say about it can have power to change it in the 
slightest degree. Shall we, then, add to its tragedy 
by allowing its poison to bite into our lives, by letting 
the wear of it strain and snap asunder the bonds of 



ACT II 73 

old and tried relations, by letting oppositions and 
resentments and hatreds engendered by it forfeit the 
precious ties of years of familiar fellowship? I ask 
you, is it worth while? Then let us look at it from a 
reasonable standpoint. Retain our own private opin- 
ions as to the right of the side we have espoused as 
we must and will, but meanwhile be just to others 
whose opposite point of view has led to a contrary 
conviction, and harass them not by forcing unwelcome 
arguments upon them. 

Now, friends and neighbors, try and make this up. 
Mr, Ransom will, I am sure, be only too ready to 
apologize to Major Faring for the insult he offered 
him in the rush of sudden anger, and Major Faring 
on his side will promise not to affront him again in 
so personal a manner. 

Major Faring — {Advancing.) I said more than 
I was called on to say, or had warrant to say, an' I 
admit I was aggravatin'. 

Ransom — {Drawing back and addressing himself 
to Longworthy slowly and distinctly.) Yours is an 
erroneous calculation, Mr. Longworthy. I have no 
apology to make to Major Faring. For the act I did, 
I offer him no reparation. 

Taggart — {In a voice tremulous with rage.) 
Then we shake the dust of this house off our feet. 
Kit, where hospitality is outraged and age subjected 
to the indignity of violence. {Goes to the tree, takes 
ojf it Major Faring's coat and hat, which he gives 
to him. Then takes up his own hat. Goes to the door, 
opens and holds it wide, in silence, whilst Major Faring 
passes through. Closes it after himself. Longworthy 



74 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

for a few moments remains in a motionless attitude, 
then steps to the tree to get his own coat. As he 
does so, the inner door is burst open and Irene, flushed 
and laboring lender violent agitation, enters.) 



Scene IV 

Irene — {Pouring out a torrent of words, features 
working. ) I was witness of the entire scene ! Aroused 
by the Major's voice, high in argumentation, I came 
to the door to listen. I saw that old man brutally 
struck! Whatever the provocation, it was the act 
of a cad, a mean coward, and I despise him who did 
it! However much he may vaunt himself on his 
scholarship and his superiority to common people, he 
is cruel and pitiless at heart. The learning, the wis- 
dom, and the culture of the savant won't make a gen- 
tleman if a man's nature is innately base, and for all 
his veneer, this man is at bottom as coarse and plebeian 
as the most utter Philistine he scorns. He would 
not hesitate a minute to sacrifice me to his self-interest, 
and already he has devoted my youth to his accommo- 
dation. He is an unnatural father, without common 
feeling for me, concerned only with his own advantage 
and leisure. I have learned him through and through 
during the years I have been cooped up here, deprived 
of any chance other girls have. He has made this 
scholarship an excuse to lounge around and get out 
of earning a man's livelihood, and if we hadn't had 
a little money from his family we should have gone 
long ago to the county house! Why did he take the 



ACT II 75 

responsibility of a father, if he didn't intend to do his 
part? Did he ever at any time give a thought to 
my claims, to my rights? Oh, no! he had none to 
spare outside his selfish pursuits and convenience! 

Ransom — {His face contorting and a dark purple 
flush overspreading it.) Have you taken entire leave 
of your senses, that you run on like a mad woman? 

Irene — {With growing excitement.) I am telling 
you what has been gathering in my mind for years, and 
it is God's truth ! From the days when I first became 
old enough to judge and estimate, I have always known 
you to be an intellectual Sybarite, a quitter, and I 
couldn't feel respect for you! And now my last 
remnant of liking for you has died away that I know 
you for a mean coward taking advantage of age! 
{Bursts into a convulsion of sobs.) 

Ransom — {In a voice shaken by anger.) Ungrate- 
ful, unfilial minx, to insult and revile me in the pres- 
ence of an outsider! Say another word, you shame- 
less termagant, and I will turn you neck and heels 
out of my doors! 

Irene — {Swaying back and forth.) Do you think 
I am afraid of your threats? Do you think it is so 
attractive here with so much to offer a young girl in 
the way of privilege and indulgence that she wants to 
stay on and on? I don't know of any place on earth 
more empty and forlorn than home! {Laughs hys- 
terically.) 

Ransom — ^You jade! {Makes a step toward her. 
Longworthy, with an imperious gesture, raises his 
hand. ) 

Irene — {To Longworthy.) Take me away! I 



76 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

tell you I won't stay under this roof another night; 
do you hear? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Soothingly.) Yes, I will take you 
to my sister, who will be so glad to receive you and 
who will treat you as though you were her own 
daughter. 

Ransom — ^Take her away and keiep her away! 
/ can get along very well without her. My God, 
that I have nourished such a viper to sting me ! 

Irene — {Sobbing.) Yes, I have neither home nor 
father. 

Ransom — {With deepest resentment.) You have 
spoken truly. The words you have said to-night can 
never be unsaid, and expressing as they do your con- 
tempt of the one you should revere, your undutifulness, 
your disloyalty, have debarred you from my fostering 
care and protection. I have no further interest in you 
and I am utterly indifferent as to what fate befalls 
you. Go with this man, wherever he chooses to take 
you; it is immaterial to me. All that I want is that 
you betake yourself hence! 

Irene — {With an affrighted glance around.) Don't 
let him come at me! He hates me for what I have 
said and he will do me harm ! He has a cruel temper. 
If he gets me he will do me harm! {Throws herself 
upon Longworthy. Clings to his neck with both arms.) 
Take me away where I shall be safe! Don't let any- 
thing hurt me! I tell you— 

Longworthy — {Smoothing her hair.) There, 
there! Nothing will hurt you. {Gently.) Come! 
{He leads her to the tree and puts on her coat.) 

Irene — {In a wondering voice.) Where are we 



ACT II 77 

going? 

LoNGWORTHY — {Soothingly.) To my sister, who 
will put you in a soft, comfortable bed where you 
will sleep without fear. 

Irene — Oh, yes! I forgot. What is it we have 
been saying? What has been the cause of this scene? 
Why was it so violent? {Looks at him with bewildered 
questioning gaze.) Why was I so passionate? {Puts 
her hand to her brow.) Is it a dream? 

{Ransom emits a deep groan, sways uncertainly, and 
plunges heavily to the floor. Longworthy turns quickly 
and rushes to him and, bending on his knees, raises 
his head. Ransom's eyes are wide open and staring, 
and he breathes stertorously.) 

Irene — {In a faint voice.) WTiat is it? What 
has happened? Oh, my God, what has happened? 

Longworthy — {Quietly.) Dear child, your 
father is over-fatigued. Go now to my sister and tell 
her to send a doctor. Don't be alarmed, little one. It 
will come right. 

Exit Irene. 

{Longworthy, with an effort, raises Ransom and 
carries him to the sofa. Unbuttons his shirt-collar. 
Ransom breathes stertorously.) 

Curtain 



ACT III 

Parlor in Longworthy's New York Apartments. 
It is handsomely furnished in mahogany, with chairs 
and rockers, a round table, with well-bound books, 
a square table, with a vase, a low couch, covered with 
a spread and containing fancy pillows, a high mantel 
on which are a few ornaments. A Royal Wilton of 
soft blended colors is on the floor. 

Time — March morning, six months later. 

Mrs. Nearing is disclosed, wearing a morning house 
gown of dark blue chambray with low turned-down 
collar of white lawn that displays her plump neck, and 
elbow^length sleeves finished with soft cuffs of white 
laavn. Her hair is covered with a coquettish little 
lace cap with tiny bows on each side of blue ribbon 
caught with rosebuds. With duster in hand, she is 
carefully wiping off the furniture. 

Scene I 

Mrs. Nearing — {Ruminatively .) I've already 
made the beds, slicked up the rooms and given Nellie 
her orders for luncheon, and after I have finished this 
dusting I mustn't forget that mirror in the dining- 
room sideboard. Last night at dinner I noticed a 

78 



ACT III 79 

smudge on it and I charged my mind to wash it off the 
first thing in the morning. {Sighs, then with care 
gathers wp the books lying on the round table, wipes 
off the mahogany^, and then the books, replacing them 
one by one.) 

Nellie {The smart maid, entering.) — A gentleman 
for you, ma'am. 

Mrs. Nearing — For me? You mean Mrs. Long- 
worthy, Nellie. 

Nellie — No ; it was Mrs. Pleione Nearing, ma'am. 

Exit Nellie. 

Mrs. Nearing — Who in this great city could ask 
for me? {Swings around and perceives Peter Tag- 
gart.) 

Taggart — {Coming forward with outstretched 
hand.) Well, Pleione, busy as usual, of course. I 
wonder when you get to heaven if you'd be happy 
without finding something to do there in the line of 
work. Perhaps the angels will be accommodating 
enough, knowing your longing to always be occupied 
with some task, to let you burnish up their golden 
harps. 

Mrs. Nearing — {With horror.) Why, Peter, how 
irreverent ! 

Taggart — ^Well, I always was an irreverent dog 
and I never made any bones about it. 

Mrs, Nearing — {Reprovingly.) You should try 
and cultivate a different spirit with more respect for 
sacred things. I don't believe you realize, Peter, how 
downright profane such speeches sound! They quite 
shock me. 

Taggart — I'm sorry to do that. It would be an 



8o CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

act of charity on your part to reclaim me. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^A difficult undertaking, when you 
are incorrigible. 

Taggart — Isn't it worth while to try and pluck 
me a brand from the burning? Why don't you let 
Mrs. do that dusting? 

Mrs. Nearing — Mrs.! {Laughs lightly.) If I 
left it to her, the dust would accumulate thick enough 
to write your name all over the furniture. {Con- 
fidentially.) The fact is, just between you and me 
and the gate-post, there isn't much dependence on 
her, Peter. For the first few weeks after her father 
died she was quite subdued, tamed, in fact, and all 
that was womanly in her came to the surface. She 
turned her attention to the interests that usually char- 
acterize our sex and evinced a willingness to learn how 
to do things, and though she was a perfect little ig- 
noramus, she was quick enough to catch on, as the 
saying is, and really seemed to find enjoyment in try- 
ing, and after Joel married her a month later, she 
asked me to come here with them and teach her all 
about housekeeping. But very soon her ardor cooled, 
her attention being taken up with the city in which 
she became so engrossed with the going about that she 
had neither time nor desire for any more domestic tasks. 
Major Faring's grandson, Cecil Gordon Keith, you 
know, who returned from Germany when the war 
broke out, is here in New York and made our acquaint- 
ance very soon, and he offered to escort her out after- 
noons and evenings whenever she wished. He comes so 
often that one might say he just about lives here, and 
the excitement of it all, the rushing hither and thither, 



ACT III 8i 

the dissipations and the late hours, have turned her 
head and made her quite giddy. 

Taggart — She is young, and this is her first fling, 
and naturally enough she is carried away with it. 
Remember, it is the age of enthusiasms with her which 
we also once knew. After she gets her fill she will 
settle down. 

Mrs. Nearing — I sincerely hope so. My brother 
sanctions it — indeed, says he brought her here for the 
express purpose that she might see and experience life. 
Nevertheless, it doesn't seem right that a person with 
an immortal soul should fritter away her precious 
hours on such trivialities. {Compressing her lips.) 
I never did approve of married women exposing them- 
selves to the temptations that come from being too 
much in the society of men who are not their hus- 
bands. 

Taggart — ^Your blood is Puritan, all right, Pleione. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Tossing her head.) I hope there 
is still enough of the Puritan strain left in the woman- 
hood of our country to enable us to bear ourselves with 
dignity and seW-respect. And what makes it more 
complicated in this case is that the girl is primitive as 
a savage and indeed one might say without the slightest 
idea of what constitutes the proprieties. 

Taggart — {Smiling.) She lacks the admirable 
prudence and circumspection for which her sister-in- 
law is noted. Do you ever make an effort to show her 
the error of her ways? 

Mrs. Nearing — I feel it my duty now and then 
to warn her. 

Taggart — ^And what does she say? 



82 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Mrs. Nearing — She laughs and throws her arms 
around my neck and says she can't live like a nun in 
such a fascinating city as this, and that I mustn't 
be old-fashioned and severe because she is young and 
loves pleasure. But I am not here to complain of 
her, Peter, and if my brother is satisfied to trust this 
young creature to her devices without a restraining 
hand, it is my business to submit. 

Taggart — Men look at these things from a dif- 
ferent angle from you ladies, Pleione. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^A wider one, I suppose you mean 
to insinuate. All you men are careless and when trou- 
ble grows out of your heedlessness you are filled with 
a sense of injury. 

Taggart — What is this grandson of the Major 
doing? 

Mrs. Nearing — Cecil Gordon? Not anything of 
consequence, save leading the life of a man about 
town. He spends a good deal of time writing, and 
now and then gets a poem in a magazine. He brings 
the manuscripts here to read to Irene, ostensibly for 
the purpose of obtaining her criticism, her literary 
judgment being held by him in such high esteem; in 
reality, to wheedle out praise, for he is vain enough! 
In his way, this young man is as insufferably con- 
ceited and arrogant as Irene's father was in his way. 
I wonder if modern education renders all men top- 
heavy ? 

He claims he is trying to secure a position in some 
university as an instructor of German. So far, he 
has not succeeded in locating anything, and he has 
been in New York since the war broke out. 



ACT III 83 

Taggart — His funds must be getting low. 

Mrs. Nearing — He still receives his allowance. 

Taggart — I am glad of that. It will tide him over 
until he is settled in some permanent paying position. 
The fact is, the Major wants this young man's mother 
home with them. The Captain had grip during the 
Winter, and it left her heart in bad shape and she 
is too feeble really to go on with the housework, and 
to say truth, both she and the old warrior are getting 
on in years and need their daughter. Now, if this 
young man were placed so that he could help out a 
little with his salary every month, his mother would 
be enabled to give up her position and come home and 
look after the old folks. In short, the Major is so 
worried about the Captain, whom he considers in a 
critical condition of health, he has come to New York 
to lay the matter before Juley. He thought at first 
he couldn't possibly make the iourney, but I assured 
him he could in all safety, for I'd see him through. 
And as I had some business myself needed looking 
after here, I thought it a good time to come and 
settle it. 

Mrs. Nearing — I can't imagine any business of 
yours in the metropolis. It looks pretty strongly as 
though you came expressly to see after him. It's 
just like your generous, kindly nature to be always 
putting yourself out to accommodate others! 

Taggart — I remember once when my accommo- 
dating nature got me into serious trouble with one 
who was very dear to me. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Tossing her head.) It got you 
into trouble because you didn't use common tact, pru- 



84 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

dence, or sense in your act of benevolence. 

Taggart — I fear both of us lacked discretion in 
that particular incident which ended so disastrously. 

Mrs. Nearing — Look here, Peter Taggart, no one 
in my presence will charge me as blameworthy in 
that incident! Any unprejudiced person will bear 
me out in that I did all that a modest, self-respecting 
girl could be expected to do toward clearing the 
matter up and setting things right! You needn't lay 
your awkward man blundering on me! 

Taggart — ^Well, then, I take all the blame on my 
shoulders. 

Mrs. Nearing — I shan't allow that! It was that 
absent-minded old dreamer of a Dave Ransom, with 
his head in the clouds, who was the real one at fault 
and the cause of all our misunderstanding. 

Taggart — Whoever was the real culprit, it's all 
dead and gone long ago, Pleione, and we've paid for 
the blunder at the price of fifteen years of our youth 
and happiness. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Sighing.) True. 

Taggart — {Coming up behind her.) Do you 
know you look very pretty and housewifely in that 
little dress? 

Mrs. Nearing — {With a little embarrassed laugh.) 
Oh, this ! I bought it at a sale, ready-made, for ninety- 
eight cents — think of that! Am I not thrifty? It 
was a real bargain! 

Taggart — More, it is extremely becoming, with 
that low-cut collar showing your white neck. I never 
knew you had such a lovely neck; you always dressed 
it so prim and high. 



ACT III 85 

Mrs. Nearing — Perhaps you consider it immodest 
for a middle-aged woman to expose her neck. 

Taggart — Immodest, when one has a lovely neck 
to give other people the pleasure of seeing and admir- 
ing it! 

Mrs. Nearing — {Flushing rosily.) Peter, you've 
surely kissed the Blarney stone! 

Taggart — I always think of you, Pleione, as a 
gracious, efficient fairy dispensing domestic blessings. 
You are the sort of woman who makes a home a place 
a fellow likes to stay in, everything is so full of com- 
fort and cheer where you are. It is a shame for you 
to be spending yourself on another woman's home 
where your services only open opportunity for her 
irresponsibility and idleness when you are so amply 
fitted to make your own a regular paradise! 

Mrs. Nearing — {With growing embarrassment.) 
Peter, you are extravagant in your flattery. 

Taggart — I've got a big bleak empty house that 
needs some one to convert it into a liveable place. But 
there is only one woman who could ever be its mistress 
and if I can't have her, I'll remain alone to the end 
of the chapter. Drop that dusting for a few minutes 
and let's sit down on the couch over there and talk 
a little. 

Mrs. Nearing — I must finish. 

Taggart — Look here, Pleione, you know as well 
as I know, there is only one woman on this footstool 
for me. Do you guess what my business here is, 
little woman? 

Mrs. Nearing — {With downcast eyes.) How 
should I guess? 



86 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Taggart — (Hk hand on her shoulder.) I lost 
out through my blundering and plumb foolishness, and 
I can't bring back those years that have fled, but, 
Pleione, I can try and make 'em up if you'll only let 
me. In the years that remain, I'll try and crowd all 
the passion and the sweetness and the joy we missed. I 
came down here to marry you and take you back with 
me. (Puts his arm around her neck.) 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, Peter! this has taken me all 
unprepared! It's so sudden! Well have to wait a 
little. 

Taggart — {With strong feeling.) Wait a little! 
Haven't we waited fifteen years? We can't afford to 
wait any longer. Every day that goes by and finds 
us still separated is a day lost that can never be re- 
covered. After a while, sweetheart, we shall grow 
old and enfeebled and the lust of life will weaken, 
our eager interest in its concerns will wane, and then 
there will come a time when our hands will be folded 
on our quiet breasts and we shall be laid in a deep 
and silent place where we can no longer see the flitting 
forms of our precious ones, where we can no longer 
hear the voice of tenderness and love. Pleione, I have 
made up my mind we are going to be married without 
any senseless ado about it. 

Mrs. Nearing — When? 

Taggart — Right now. This very day. {Bends 
and presses his lips to her throat. In a low voice.) Is 
it a decision you don't want to hear? 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, I don't know what to think, 
to say! It has taken me so unexpectedly! 

Taggart — {Tenderly.) Is the thought of being 



ACT III 87 

my wife hateful to you? 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, no, no! I am sure from the 
time I was a young girl I had accustomed myself to the 
thought of some day becoming your wife. 

Taggart — You angel! 

Enter Major Faring, followed by Cecil Gordon 
Keithj who is tall, elegant and youthful of form and 
bears himself with easy grace. 

Scene II 

Major Faring — {Advancing with rolling gait, par- 
tially supporting himself by the aid of his cane.) Well, 
Peter, you got here ahead of me, this morning. Might 
have known it. Magnet to draw you, boy, straight 
to the one place, hey? {Winks. Puts out his hand to 
Mrs. Nearing.) How are you, Pleione? This is 
my grandson, Cecil Gordon Keith. 

Mrs. Nearing — {With a slight toss of her head.) 
Oh, I assure you I have had many opportunities of 
extending my acquaintance with Mr. Keith. 

Major Faring — ^Why, yes, come to think of it, 
of course you have. He just naturally would gravitate 
to his grandsire's friends. He's been pilotin' me around 
this mornin', first for breakfast an' then to call on 
his mother. I couldn't have done a blamed thing if 
he hadn't had a close grip on my arm, I was that con- 
fused by the rush an' medley. I never saw anything 
like it. I'd no more dare to go on Broadway alone 
in that melee of noise an' traffic to wait my chance for 
a surface car than I'd dare walk a tight rope over the 
German lines! An' Fifth Avenue, with the automo- 



88 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

biles everlastingly rushin' by like an avalanche, down 
one side in a solid stream, up on t'other, ain't much 
better. The hull thing is too excitin' an' calls for 
too large an output of concentration. Imagine how 
long Dave Ransom, his eyes turned skyward, his wits 
preoccupied with wool-gatherin', would have lasted 
in this place! 

Mrs. Nearing — Is this your first experience in New 
York, Major? 

Major Faring — I was here once a few days, back 
in '67. 

Taggart — Guess you find a little change since then. 

Major Faring — ^This whole country has been ex- 
pandin' some, multiplyin' in numbers, advancin' in 
standards of livin', since that time, take it from me, 
Peter. With life growin' more complex every day, 
with the mania for excitement an' speed increasin' 
steady, I don't know where this livin' at top pressure 
is goin' to bring us to. 

Mrs. Nearing — But j^ou haven't told us how you 
like the metropolis? 

Major Faring — ^Then I will tell you straight, 
right now, Pleione, an' get it out of my system. I 
have no use for it atall! If a feller values his life 
an' limbs, he will never, after he's forty years old, 
get on to one of them motor cycles, — a contraption of 
the very devil to beat the brains out of his head. 
Likewise, in this here metropolis, where haste chases 
a feller all day long like the imps of hell an' taps fail 
to sound at night for lights out an' to bed! Only 
young spry fellers with eyes like hawks an' ears like 
weasels, with every faculty close on the job, should 



ACT III 89 

presume to live in a place with elevateds thunderin' 
over your head, subways beneath your feet, shootin' 
along their journey as from cannons, street cars 
janglin' on the surface, automobiles dartin' by with 
the speed of the wind. It's an unnatural place, full 
of commotion, overgrown with people an' buildin's 
an' business in a space too small to draw a decent 
breath in, or find room to turn around without hittin' 
some one's elbows. An' what does it all amount to 
when you come to think about it? What are they 
accomplishin' here more than any other part of the 
country is doin' ? 

I frankly confess I'm too old to steer around in 
this wilderness of crowds an' traffic, an' too nervous 
to have my ears tortured by the deafenin' uproar. The 
quiet humdrum town for mine, where an elderly feller 
can contain his soul in peace. 

Cecil, here, he's young an' he just enjoys the ex- 
citement of the risk, an' it's fairly wonderful how 
he threads his way through the thickest crush by the 
fraction of an inch, always glidin' out of danger. 
Two or three times this mornin' I thought we surely 
were gone, but no, at the psychological moment we 
made the only step as by a miracle that gave us 
escape ! 

Keith — I am so used to it, I hardly give it a sec- 
ond's thought, and act as by instinct. Being in so 
many of the capitals of Europe and living so long 
in Berlin, have accustomed me to the noise and con- 
fusion of congested cities. 

Major Faring — {With doting pride.) Cecil's 
cosmopolitan, you know. 



90 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Keith — ^Well, I have knocked around among so 
many scenes and peoples and have had experiences 
so varied, that I feel justified in laying claim to being 
a citizen of the v^^orld. 

Taggart — ^You doubtless find a contrast here to 
the European world. 

Keith — {Jauntily.) I find a less highly developed 
order of civilization, as is to be expected in a young 
country that has not yet attained to its full maturity, 
w^hose processes indeed still remain largely tentative. 
And democracy, vv^hich tends to the leveling of all 
classes, doing away entirely with hereditary rank and 
social distinctions, and is responsible for a great elas- 
ticity of conditions and the astonishing transitions of 
individual status, brings its crudity more clearly to 
the surface. 

Major Faring — Democracy is the golden gate 
through which all men, regardless of their birth, pass 
to take their equal opportunities. 

Keith — {Airily.) That is demagogical cant that 
has long imposed on the crowd and given false im- 
pressions of life and standards of value to the misled 
masses. 

Major Faring — ^We owe our opportunities here 
to our noble an' progressive form of government which 
aids an' stimulates the endeavors of its citizens. 

Keith — {Nonchalantly.) Another highly cherished 
and antiquated delusion that has tickled the multitude. 
The man who possesses the desire can make oppor- 
tunities for himself fully as well under a monarchical 
or imperialistic form of government as under one of 
this sort where the rabble unfit and unprepared, elbow 



ACT III 91 

and jostle in order to thrust themselves in the places 
that should be occupied only by the competent, the 
highly qualified. 

Taggart — I beg to differ with you. What you 
have said might apply to the privileged classes or to 
exceptionally gifted individuals who hew their way 
irresistibly to their goal, however seemingly insur- 
mountable the obstacles. But it is not possible for the 
rank and file, whom we term the average men, to 
receive just opportunities under any form of govern- 
men where the power and the advantages are held 
exclusively by the hereditary few, which makes inev- 
itable inequalities of the most glaring sort. 

Keith — {Insolently.) And what, my dear sir, do 
the rank and file count? Suppose they are deprived 
of what you term their just opportunities? Is any- 
thing lost thereby? Only the superior men, those of 
high birth that includes the privileges of education and 
culture, or those of unusual qualifications and train- 
ing, or of exceptionally meritorious endowment, con- 
cern the progress of the world and contribute to its 
civilization. Who are fit to be leaders of men, to 
direct their destinies? Not the average men ineffi- 
cacious and inadequate who bungle the game, but those 
who are possessed of sterling intellectual worth and 
ability adapted to a special design ! Such characteristics 
typify the overman, the man qualified to be Captain 
of the Host! 

{The Major, knitting his brows, regards him with 
wondering perplexity and troubled doubt.) 

Taggart — On the contrary, I should say the man 
qualified to be Captain of the Host is the man of 



92 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

disciplined will who is able to command his own spirit! 

Mrs, Nearing — {With thinly -veiled sarcasm.) 
You must have found it a real cross to be obliged 
to leave Germany at the outbreak of the war and 
return to so proletarian a country as America. 

Keith — {Stroking his small mustache.) I frankly 
admit, I prefer the well-conducted system of elegant 
conservatism that obtains there to the conspicuous 
want of order and management due to amateur politics, 
that prevails here. And rather than return, my first 
impulse was to offer myself to the Germans, but on 
second thought, considering the high degree of effi- 
ciency to which the Kaiser's troops were trained and 
contrasted with my own absolute want of it, I con- 
cluded my services would not be accounted of very 
«much value. 

Major Faring — {With dilating chest.) Do I 
understand that you, a free-born American citizen, 
for a moment considered the possibility of offering 
yourself to fight in the German ranks? 

Keith — {With composure.) I did. Why not? 

Major Faring — ^Why not, indeed! Because the 
-principle for which they are contendin' is basically 
wrong. That's why! 

Keith — How, wrong ? 

Major Faring — ^What have men gained after cen- 
turies of strife where human blood has been poured 
out like water to safeguard human rights an' procure 
human freedom an' all the independence an' self- 
reliance that grow out of the exercise of self-govern- 
ment, if in this modern age of wonderful progress an' 
advancement along every line of thought an' endeavor, 



ACT III 93 

the retrogressive principle of imperialism upheld by 
the sheer might of arms is to be forced on an unwilling 
world against the best convictions an' desires of civ- 
ilization — against the entire trend of evolution! 

Keith — It's only because yours is a provincial way 
of looking at it. The strong must prevail. 

Major Faring — Might is not right! The prin- 
ciple is wrong, I tell you. 

Keith — You are convinced of that because of the 
fact solely that you have been nurtured to democratic 
ideals and you think that the only right sort of gov- 
ernment can be one whose source is in the people, re- 
gardless of whether they are prepared or indeed capa- 
ble of administering it. Imperialism, to my mind, is 
much better when the power is vested in the hands 
of those few who are qualified by the tests of efficiency, 
— brains and education and thorough training, — to 
wield authority. 

Major Faring — ^With carte blanche to wield it 
justly or unjustly, as suits their advantage. If your 
education abroad for the purpose of emancipatin' your 
understandin' an 'broadenin' your outlook on Iffe 
has brought you to a pass where you repudiate the tra- 
ditions of this great country, an' become an apostate 
to your own government in order to espouse one that 
is founded on a system of individual subordination an' 
dependence, I say you have lost more than you have 
gained, if you are the most learned young man turned 
out of any university. {Violently.) I have heard 
enough, sir! 

Keith — {With a shrug, and abruptly to Mrs. 
N earing.) Where is Mrs. Longworthy this morn- 



94 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

ing? 

Mrs. Nearing — She isn't up yet. When she is 
out until after midnight, as she has been of late, she 
has to make up her sleep, and usually lies until noon. 
She had her breakfast in bed this morning. 

Taggart — For a girl bred in the country, that's 
going some. 

{Irenes voice, gayly.) Don't criticize the absent, 
for sometimes the unseen have ears that hear! {The 
door is pushed open.) 

Enter Irene, with a frou-frou of draperies, wearing 
a trailing morning gown of soft white, lace-trimmed, 
lined with strawberry silk. On her feet are high- 
heeled strawberry satin slippers. Her hair, built to 
the crown of her head, is upheld by a high back- 
comb set with brilliants. 

{She advances with undulating grace, nods lightly 
to Keith, and puts out her hand to Major Faring.) 
Irene — How are you, Major? 

Scene III 

Major Faring — {With wondering admiration.) 
Well, I'm beat, if you haven't become a regular city 
woman ! 

Irene — {Laughing softly.) It doesn't take long to 
metamorphose my sex, we are so adaptable. {Shakes 
hands with Taggart.) To see you both together again 
seems like old times. 

Major Faring — {Solemnly.) There is one who 
should be here, will never come again. 

{A shadow flits over Irene's face, but clears almost 



ACT III 95 

instantly.) 

Irene — {In a rallying voice.) I think you are a 
very courageous man to brave the perils of this big 
congested city. 

Major Faring — I think so, too, at my age. When 
a man gets to be eighty-odd, gallivantin' around over- 
grown cities ain't his strong suit; but I came with a 
purpose. 

Irene — ^Ah, indeed! 

Major Faring — I came to persuade my Juley that 
it is her duty to give up her position here an' come 
home an' take care of her old parents. Her mother is 
very poorly this spring, an' I'm far from being as 
husky as formerly, an' we surely need her as never 
before. 

Irene — ^And is she properly convinced? 

Major Faring — She has consented, lookin' to 
Cecil, here, to land that position he is expectin', for he 
can help us out when her salary stops. 

Keith — {Nonchalantly.) I have not the slightest 
doubt but what I shall be permanently located by next 
September. My Arbeit is an excellent endorsement, 
and I have received encouraging answers to my appli- 
cations. 

Major Faring — ^This is a world, Cecil, in which 
most of us are obliged to work for our livin', an' your 
mother has earned hers a good many years, an' it's 
time she quit. 

Irene — {To Taggart.) I didn't know you had 
any special partiality for New York, Mr. Taggart. 

Taggart — ^To say the truth, I haven't. Like the 
Major, a purpose also induced my trip. To make a 



96 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

clean breast of it, I have come expressly to take your 
sister-in-law back with me. We are going to be 
married this afternoon. 

Irene — {Clasping her hands enthusiastically.) Oh, 
how novel! 

Major Faring — Well, if I ain't jiggered, and you 
ain't the sly dog! But I might have seen which way 
the wind was settin'. You the confirmed old batch! 
but better late than never. Congratulations! (Shakes 
Taggart heartily by the hand.) Peter, my boy, if 
you'd hunted the world over, you couldn't find a better 
choice than the one you've made. She's a Number 
One-A housekeeper, an' the best little woman goin', an' 
believe me, you're makin' no mistalce in selectin' her 
for a wife! 

Taggart — {Modestly.) I reckon I know that. 

Keith — Wish you every happiness, sir. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Drawing a deep breath.) If 
that isn't an exhibition of nerve! It's wholly of his 
own concocting, and he's taking it all for granted. 
I haven't consented to a thing. 

Taggart — You haven't vetoed it. Now get your 
belongings packed up, Pleione, for I am going for the 
license and this afternoon we'll hunt out a parson. 
Come along, Kit. 

Major Faring — I'm on! {He rises heavily.) 

Taggart — {Taking from his breast pocket some 
cigars.) Have one, Major. 

Major Faring — {With a show of reluctance.) 
Really, now, it's my turn, you know. I can't always 
be acceptin' from you, Peter. 

Taggart — {Waving away his objection.) Shi 



ACT III 97 

Your cigars aren't as good as mine, and you know it. 
Besides, the treats are on me to-day. 

Exeunt Major Faring, with a great pounding 
of his cane, and Taggart. 

Mrs. Nearing — Well, if that isn't the most pre- 
cipitate, the most importunate man I ever ran across! 
His haste is something indecorous! If his impudence 
in springing this thing isn't colossal, I don't know 
what is! But when a man gets his head fully set, 
there is no gainsaying him. {Glances at the little 
clock on the mantel.) I have got short enough time 
to get ready in as it is. (Starts toward the door.) 

Irene — Can I help you, sister Pleione? 

Mrs. Nearing — ^You'd only hinder me, child. I 
know just where I can put my hand on everything. 

Exit Mrs. Nearing, in her haste forgetting to close 
the door after her, which is unnoticed by Keith and 
Irene. 

Scene IV 

Keith — ^This is certainly an interesting situation, 
with the old guy in love with the she-dragon and a 
middle-aged romance about to end in a belated mar- 
riage. 

Irene — We'll all get middle-aged sooner or later. 

Keith — {Fitting a cigarette in his long amber 
tube.) We can be reconciled to falling in the sere 
and yellow leaf if we feel we had our chance at life 
whilst we were young. If that isn't the most pro- 
vincial bunch I ever had the fortune to run up against 1 



98 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Rich! My Trojan grandsire, with his grandiloquent 
self-complacency, and bombastic assurance and know- 
it-allness, — the dapper rural swain, — the sedate and 
proper, the discreet widow with her prim little airs of 
coquetry, — all three are characters fit for a barn- 
storming play! It's delicious! 

Irene — Cecil Gordon, do you know I am surprised 
sometimes at things you say! From a young gentle- 
man of such elegant tastes and refined culture, some 
of your remarks betray a vein of positive coarseness. 

Keith — {Laughing easily.) That comes from my 
student associations. Students are a rough and ready 
class, notoriously wanting in respect, and proverbially 
frank to the point of brutality in their opinions. But, 
honest Injun, jesting aside, Irene, it is the most 
amazingly unique homespun outfit one could, I verily 
believe, find in this queerly assorted, preposterous 
America. 

Irene — ^You find them very amusing, but don't 
forget they are the kind I have been forced to consort 
with my whole life long. 

Keith — Poor kiddie ! But don't you forget, I have 
been a fellow-sufferer also. I, too, was doomed to 
be marooned wi.th them until I was pretty well raised, 
as the Virginians say. And since my association with 
men and women of the world, I find such provincial- 
ism simply astonishing! 

Irene — {Archly.) We might run the risk of being 
called young prigs. 

Keith — {Laughing.) When people surpass the 
common herd they are privileged to be prigs. Superior 
merit cannot remain unconscious of itself. 



ACT III 99 

Fortunately, you are likely now to be relieved of 
any further penance as regards their society, for they 
won't have reason to inflict themselves on you any 
more. And surely we ought to be supremely grateful 
to this rustic gallant for removing the she-dragon 
from her self-imposed duty of sentinelship. 

Irene — She doesn't approve of you. 

Keith — I know that well, hence the unslackening 
vigilance at her post. 

Irene — {Pouting.) Meddlesome old thing! She 
came here at my own invitation to initiate me in the 
mysteries of housekeeping, and right away she con- 
stituted herself my duenna. Oh, I get so tired of her 
everlasting guardianship! I just feel she is watching 
and disapproving of me all the while, even when she 
doesn't say anything. She acts it and makes me feel 
I am a little girl who hasn't sense enough to steer 
herself alone! And it robs me of my independence, 
besides spoiling my pleasure. If Joe doesn't take the 
trouble to meddle with what I do, in fact doesn't mind, 
why should she? 

Keith — Good old scout! That husband of yours 
is another remarkable individuality, but he is so gen- 
uinely a man that he is quite removed from the hazard 
of being ludicrous. 

Irene — {Stiffly.) I am so glad he escapes your 
derision. 

Keith — He has my admiration. In this age of 
sham, when the most of us humbugs and make-believes 
are trying to impose on each other by pretending we are 
something other than we are, he's so unfeigned, so 
real, as to command respect. {Blowing out a wreaih 



loo CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

of smoke.) What is he doing these days? I hardly 
ever see him. 

Irene — He is busy. He has an office downtown 
where he spends much of his time, and when he is home 
he writes at his desk in the dining-room, and I no- 
ticed the table was covered with a lot of maps. Yet 
for all that, he has repeatedly offered his services to 
escort me out evenings, but I always decline by saying 
I have already accepted your invitation. 

Keith — ^What does he say to that? 

Irene — ^AU right. 

Keith — He doesn't act offended, then? 

Irene — ^Joe offended? Oh, no! But as to what 
is occupying him: A syndicate of capitalists are con- 
cerned in a big mining venture in the Far West called 
the Sunflower Gold Mining Consolidated, and they 
want him to assume the managership of it as he is con- 
sidered one of the best mining authorities in the coun- 
try. Though he has not said anything to me about 
it I wouldn't be surprised any time we broke up 
here altogether. 

Keith — But he wouldn't think of such a thing as 
exiling you to some rough God-forsaken country! 

Irene — Probably not. But even worse he might 
think it the expedient course I be transported back 
to that impossible town where plenty more correspond- 
ing to the specimens that afford you such amusement 
are to be found in their native state of luxuriance and 
crudity. He lifted the mortgages from my father's 
house and it is still unsold and I probably will be 
offered a choice between that and the old Longworthy 
homestead he fitted up for his sister's occupancy. Can 



ACT III 101 

you think of anything worse than to be buried again 
in that stale, flat, stuffy little burg? 

Keith — ^You are not a bale of goods, to be sent 
here or there at any one's behest. 

Irene — {Shaking her head.) I am absolutely pen- 
niless. That has always been my tragedy, for it has 
deprived me of my independence, made me helpless. 

Keith — Rot! Gad, for a girl of spirit to make 
such an admission! You can assert your will, you 
can take things in your own hands, can't you? When 
matters get unbearable, end them. 

Irene — So far, they have not been unbearable. 

Keith — But they will be if this husband of yours 
asks you to do anything that is odious to you, and 
precisely then you are entirely justified in rebelling. 

Irene — He has always been so kind to me, and 
patient with my follies. His is a noble nature. 

Keith — What of that? You don't for a moment 
pretend that a delicate, pretty, fastidious little person 
like yourself married that big, uncouth fellow, with 
his coarse, hardened hands, because you loved him? 

Irene — His hands are toil-hardened, but he is ten- 
der as a woman and has never spoken a rough word 
to me. From the first, he was good and generous. 

Keith — Why shouldn't he be, when it was his aim 
to win your confidence and gratitude to the end he 
might annex your youth and beauty! 

Irene — Oh, how strange that sounds! 

Keith — Perhaps it's blunt, but it's true. What is 
there in common between you and him? Your tastes 
are not congenial. To begin with, he is old enough 
to be your father. Such a marriage is a piisfit. 



I02 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Irene — I wish you wouldn't talk to me like that. 

Keith — I will talk so. Do you dare assert you 
married him because you loved him? 

Irene — ^There is so much to him to command re- 
spect. I tell you he is different from all other men 
I ever have met. 

Keith — ^You have met scarcely any with whom to 
compare him. 

Irenes — I have met you. 

Keith — ^You are just hedging, Irene, as women 
always do when they want to conceal the truth. Be 
honest. You married him for the simple reason you 
didn't know what else to do with yourself, and be- 
cause he represented the one and only available oppor- 
tunity that could deliver you from your difficulties. 

Irene — {With affitation.) I protest when you, 
an outsider, analyze any conditions that obtained in 
my past which concerned me alone, or sum up on 
your assumption my reasons for marrying the man 
who is my husband. 

Keith — Grandstand talk! Do you seriously mean 
it when you call me an outsider? 

Irene — I say it is an unwarrantable liberty. It is 
not fair. 

Keith — Fair? You must have known that sooner 
or later we would reach a point where a show-down 
was inevitable. 

Irene — {Trying to rise.) I must not listen. 

Keith — {Restraininff her.) Don't simulate re- 
sentment at this late hour. I know it is the custom 
for women to artfully play the prude at the crucial 
moment, but you are too direct and sincere a child of 



ACT III 103 

nature for such worn-out devices. I know it is the 
habit of your siren sex to adroitly lead men on to the 
place where they are no longer able to contain their 
feelings and blurt out the whole passion that has over- 
mastered them, and then pretend ignorance, feign 
shocked surprise, holding themselves back in order to 
be more maddeningly enticing and precious. I am 
deadly in earnest, Irene, and I am not going to be 
put off by artful evasions that ill become you. It was 
your straightforward honesty, your absence of affecta- 
tion that attracted me, for I have had plenty of ex- 
perience with the ordinary wiles of women. Now 
listen, kid. You saw from the first I found pleasure 
in your society, I was interested in you, and being 
of that sex whose instinct is to ensnare and take 
captive mine, you must have felt that your lure was 
potent; you could not have been blind to the fact that 
day by day my interest was deepening, that the mag- 
net was drawing me closer and closer. It was more 
than the passing admiration of a young man for a beau- 
tiful, high-spirited and original girl, it was more than 
mere transient liking or fondness, and it grew into an 
infatuation that I can no longer control. {With 
strong feeling.) I am intoxicated with your charms, 
your looks, the fascinating little ways of you, with 
the curve of those rosy lips into your adorable smile, 
with the downward sweep of your lashes, — everything 
about you is unspeakably alluring to me. Consciously 
or unconsciously, you are drawing me irresistibly 
whither you will. I love you passionately, madly, 
to the point where I am ready to throw everything to 
the winds for your sake! 



I04 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Irene — I beg you to stop ! Do you not realize that 
by tearing away the barriers of convention between 
us that have served as a protection to me, a salutary 
restraint to you, you have utterly spoiled our relations ? 

Keith — {Exultantly.) Then you concede you 
have known to what we were tending! 

Irene — It is impossible after this avowal I receive 



you ever agam 



Keith — {Masterfully.) I intend to have no com- 
promise about it. I am going to speak out the entire 
truth and then we shall see! I have been a careless, 
sneering, cynical fellow, Irene, without belief in man's 
integrity or woman's truth, mocking at the conventions 
that safeguard society, scoffing at the things others hold 
in reverence; but you have shaken me out of my in- 
difference into a new earnestness, into a sense of re- 
sponsibility. I am still on the threshold of my career, 
and through the might of this love I bear you it is 
within your power to change my life, to direct my 
gifts into worthy and distinguished channels, to make 
of me a useful, a great man! 

Irene — {With emotion.) This is not right! 

Keith — It is right, for it is natural that youth in 
its divine freshness, its first triumphant bloom, should 
mate with youth alone. And Nature never errs. 
{Ardently.) Think of it, little girl, — ^we are nearly 
of the same years, belonging to the same generation 
of knowledge and glorious emancipation of thought; 
ours is the age of generous sentiments, of sympathetic 
responsive emotions, we feel the splen/did enthusi- 
asms, like noble wine, glowing through our veins, the 
tempestuous rush of passion along all our pulses! Our 



ACT III 105 

tastes are allied, our aspirations, our dreams, are kin- 
dred, our pursuits are similar; we love pleasure, we 
hunger for novelty, we would quaff the cup of ex- 
perience to its dregs, we crave life, ever more life! 
We long for happiness with an unquenchable desire 
whose eager intensity approaches pain! We have to 
look forward to long years of health and boiinding 
vitality and opportunity! They are ours, all ours, 
to have and to enjoy! {Irene's head droops. He 
draws her to his breast.) You liked me a little from 
the beginning, Liebchen. Is it not so? Look up 
in my eyes and tell me — is it not so ? 

Irene — I am a wicked, unnatural girl! 

Keith — Liebes Kind, dear little one, no, no ! It is 
youth speaking to you through my lips, craving the 
boon of love, my darling! Is not love youth's inherit- 
ance? It is youth in its exultant strength, its resistless, 
all-conquering, imperious might, suing for possession, 
pleading fulfilment. And to its call you cannot - do 
other than surrender. Might must and will prevail. 

Irene — {Bursting into tears.) You have put a 
spell on me. I feel a weakening in all my limbs, a 
tremulous ecstasy to my finger-tips. I should have 
resisted this, drawn away in time. I should have 
known better. 

Keith — {Kissing the tears away.) Do you think 
for a moment our being brought together was through 
any accident or fortuitous circumstance? Or that 
this consummation is through any fault on your part? 
Indeed, no! It was meant we should meet, it was 
foreordained we should come together — I as your 
Mann, you as meine kleine Frau. 



io6 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Irene — But this is sheer folly, Cecil. You forget 
I am already bound in marriage. 

Keith — {Laughing lightly.) How long will an 
arbitrary institution like marriage, framed to the uses 
of a highly artificial civilization, withstand the natural 
desire of the human heart? 

Irene — He has been good to me and I owe him 
something. 

Keith — You owe him everything if you love him. 
If not, you are exempted from the full price of the 
debt. 

Irene — By my legal contract, I have taken obliga- 
tions. 

Keith — What then? They cease when your love 
goes to its destined port; for love is a thing that the 
bonds of man-made law cannot fetter, or alike the 
decrees of social expediency, confine! 

Irene — ^What am I to do? Oh, what am I to do? 

Keith — ^You shouldn't worry. 

Irene — But he must know, he has got to know! 

Keith — And he will know. 

Irene — I have not the courage to tell him. 

Keith — I will tell him. 

{Irene gives a cry of stifled terror and huddles 
against the sofa. Keith, following her gaze, beholds 
Longworthy, drawn up to his full magnificent propor- 
tions, standing in the doorway. His splendid person 
as though chiseled from marble, his motionless attitude, 
instinct with dignity and power, resembles one of the 
Olympian gods. Keith slowly rises to his full height 
and the two men for half a minute steadily confront 
one another.) 



ACT III 107 

Scene V 

LoNGWORTHY — {Slowly breaking the silence.) It 
is not my custom to play the eavesdropper in any 
house, let alone in my own. But the door was ajar 
and I could not avoid hearing your voices and your 
conversation was of such a singular nature as to so 
strongly arouse my curiosity that I may be pardoned 
for listening. I ask you what your intentions are 
toward this girl. 

Keith — I answer they are wholly honorable, sir. 

LoNGWORTHY — {D?-aiuing a deep breath.) Your 
acts thus far do not give much warranty of that or 
inspire much confidence in your word. You call it 
honorable to come into a man's house, accept his hos- 
pitality, and whilst enjoying his confidence, deliberately 
betray it by stealing away the affections of his wife? 

Keith — ^You encouraged me to come here, sir, and 
to escort her about. 

LoNGWORTHY — True. I wanted her to have her 
heart's desire, which was to see a little, and to enjoy 
some of the pleasures of which her restricted environ- 
ment had deprived her. And you seemed better quali- 
fied to show her this life and initiate her in these 
pleasures than I. 

Keith — ^And you must have taken into account that 
two ardent young people of nearly the same age, pos- 
sessed of talent and education and their share of good 
looks, at the most impressionable period of their lives, 
would prove singularly attractive to one another. 
You must have known the temptations to which our 
continual association, brought to so familiar a footing, 



io8 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

exposed us. You could not have been blind to the 
risk we ran, or to the contingency of this happening. 
And what has resulted having been aided largely 
through your own instrumentality, you therefore can- 
not thrust the blame back on me. 

LoNGWORTHY — I had considered all these things, 
but I banked on the fact that you both possessed a 
common measure of honor, that she knew her duty, 
and I could trust her, and that you, sir, were a man! 

Keith — I am a man with my own code of honor. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Taking a step forward.) A 
strange code ! You were perfectly aware that this girl 
was young, you saw that she was entirely ignorant 
of the ways of the world, and you who were thoroughly 
practised in them, took base advantage of both her 
youth and her inexperience! 

Keith — I had no thought of taking any advantage 
of either. There had come upon me this incompre- 
hensible, this wonderful, this stupendous thing, tyran- 
nous as sweet, that has revealed deeps in my nature 
and possibilities I never dreamed existed, and I only 
knew that I wanted her, that I must have her, and 
that nothing should prevent my having her! I be- 
lieve that a supreme love is something outside our 
power of volition or seeking. It comes without pre- 
monition or warning, and it is so resistless that every 
other thing must give way before it. 

LoNGWORTHY — A true man resists what he knows 
to be wrong, 

Keith — {With kindling glance.) But I protest 
it is not wrong. It is God-given! You can't under- 
stand how a man is overwhelmed by a thing of this 



ACT III 109 

sort when you have never experienced it. {With 
passionate rebuke.) You had no right to take this 
girl into your possession, you w^ho were not akin to 
her in thought or desire! You had no right to bind 
her buoyant youth to your staid middle age, to shackle 
her eager, restless spirit with the rigid fetters of 
duty! It was a monstrous wrong on your part, sir, 
and deserving of severest condemnation! 

LoNGWORTHY — What I did was done only with 
the thought of her good. In an embarrassing and diffi- 
cult situation, I was actuated by what seemed to her 
best advantage. She was immature, a mere child in 
the ways of experience, and after her father's death 
utterly alone and penniless, and I married her in 
order to have the right to protect her. But we will 
not discuss that now. What I want to get at is what 
you proposed to do. 

Keith — It was simple enough. I had intended 
going West to see something of this country, but first, 
before starting, I had intended to persuade her to 
meet me in California. I knew, of course, as a logical 
sequence to her flight, you would move for a divorce 
on the ground of abandonment, and I also knew it 
would not be a difficult matter for her in one of those 
Western states to procure a release from you, and then 
I would marry her. 

LoNGWORTHY — For a young man of such startlingly 
original ethical ideas, it seems a rather stale program. 
Couldn't you think up anything a little more novel? 

Keith — It was my first thought. But later, when 
I came to give it more reflection, I was immediately 
convinced that there was only one honorable course 



no CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

open to me and that was to go straight to you, lay the 
entire situation before you and put it up to you as man 
to man. I hoped you would see the matter in its 
true light and be willing to do the square thing. 

LoNGWORTHY — ^And because you wanted it so, you 
thought I would tamely surrender my rights without 
making the slightest opposition in order you might 
step into my place! A naive inference! Only you 
reckoned without giving consideration to the point of 
view of the other party or to what action he might take. 
Your understanding of me was erroneous. I tell you 
right here, I am not the sort of man to yield my claims 
without desperate resistance. A husband worthy of 
the name does not, without a struggle, give over his 
wife to the first insolent young trifler who comes along ! 

Keith — I hoped, when you came to see the injus- 
tice of binding this young girl against the desire of 
her heart, that you would voluntarily resign her to the 
one whom she alone loves. Marriage is a union of 
two people for life, organized simply to meet the 
expediencies of the State, and like any institution that 
seeks to compel the human will, constrain the human 
feelings, repress natural impulses, it is at best auto- 
cratic; but, sir, when love is not present, I care not if 
this institution be sanctioned by ten thousand laws, 
there is only one word that expresses it! 

LoNGWORTHY — {Turning from him to Irene.) 
You think you love this man? 

Irene — {Shrinking.) Oh, don't ask me, please, 
Joe! 

LoNGWORTHY — Don't be afraid. Have I ever been 
harsh to you at any of those times when you con- 



ACT III III 

fessed to me what was the truth, however unpalatable 
it might be? Then speak out and do not fear. Do 
you think you love this man? 

Irene — ^Yes. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Quietly.) Don't you think there 
is something due to me, child? 

Irene — {Bursting into tears.) Indeed, indeed, I 
know there is, more than I can repay. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Gently.) Don't you think you 
owe some measure of gratitude to me for giving you 
a chance in this great wonderful world of many inter- 
ests to see and enjoy a little of what there is of 
pleasure and profit in it, — for trying to put a little 
sunshine in your young life? 

Irene — Oh, don't talk about it ! It makes me seem 
such a worthless wretch! 

LoNGWORTHY — {Softly.) And did you not at any 
time ever care a little for the old fellow who meant 
only to be kind to you? 

Irene — How could I help it when I knew him to be 
the noblest, the most generous man! 

LoNGWORTHY — {His hand to his brow.) My only 
thought as regarded you was to gratify your desires, 
to give you pleasure. Your wistful eyes, your eager 
voice, appealed to me as nothing else could have done, 
for I saw in that look, I heard in those tones, the 
longing all over again that possessed my own starved 
youth. I resolved you should not be denied as others 
were denied for the want of opportunity and money. 
Then after your father's death you were so entirely 
alone and dependent, you were so exposed to the world, 
I feared for you, and so it seemed expedient to better 



112 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

shield you to take you to myself. Could that be called 
an unfair advantage of you? Perhaps my own feel- 
ings enhanced that need of protection, made my re- 
sponsibility for your security seem greater than it 
really was. Perhaps I deceived myself and selfish 
motives were at the root of my benevolent concern for 
your welfare. You had entered my life late as a 
sunbeam flashes athwart the gloom of a somber and 
waning day. I had known so few women and when, 
after the lonely years, your radiant youth came to my 
middle age it was a revelation of joy such as in my 
wildest flights of fancy I had never dared to antici- 
pate. You personified my ideals of womanly grace 
and beauty. In you I found the realization of my 
boyhood's most sacred, most precious dreams! I felt 
such a pride in winning you as I had never experienced 
in the bitterest fought struggle of my life, or its hardest 
earned success! (He reels and staggers to a chair 
and covers his face.) 

Keith — {With deep emotion.) This has become 
a tragedy, sir. You love her! 

LoNGWORTHY — {His hands shaking convulsively.) 
Love her? Love her? A man does not usually make 
parade of his profoundest affections, but rather lets 
his deeds speak for him. But in justice to himself 
at a supreme crisis when he is pleading for his hap- 
piness, it is meet he leave no stone unturned in his 
efforts to move the beloved one by his appeal and 
bring her back to her loyalty. {To Irene.) If you 
think I have been so absorbed in business as to be 
neglectful of you it was unintentional, my sweet, and 
I humbly crave your forgiveness. But a man in his 



ACT III 113 

strong prime must go forth to the lists as did knights 
of old, to battle in the thick of the great combat, must 
in his day and his generation do his part of the world's 
work ; and as a wife your pride would be in that I was 
known of men, that by force of my doughty arm I had 
won my honorable place among them! Because I am 
a silent man perhaps you have thought you. were not 
loved with the passionate ardor your fiery impetuous 
nature demanded, your youth had a right to expect; 
perhaps you have missed the words of eloquent tender- 
ness, the glowing declarations. But, Irene, though my 
words are few and clumsily expressed, my love for you 
is none the less deep and strong and abiding. Whenever 
I look out upon the marvels of this majestic and 
stupendous world and muse upon that transcendent 
power that has wrought them out of self-created sub- 
stance from the most ponderous to the most airy and 
immaterial, choosing thus to manifest itself, I reflect 
with exultation that you are of the choicest handiwork 
of this universal genius! When I awaken in the hush 
of the virgin morn and see the miracle of the rising 
sun filling the eastern sky with blushes at the first 
signals of his oncoming presence, and lift my soul to 
my Maker's throne in rapture and gratitude for this 
priceless boon of life, I thank Him with swelling 
breast for his gift of you, my sweet, my bride ! When 
I behold at the close of day the splendid sunset clouds 
that make the entire heavens one great canvas of 
glorious color, when later I see the stars glittering in 
the dark blue dome and all the mystery and the 
grandeur circle me about and fill my being with won- 
dering awe, I raise my thoughts On High in mute 



114 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

prayer of thanksgiving , for the peace and the mercy 
that have descended upon me so unworthy as I am 
of His goodness, and I render my fervent acknowledg- 
ment again for His gracious grant of you, my heart, 
my life! All that is beautiful, that thrills the senses, 
stirs the imagination, all that is sublime, that elevates 
and inspires is associated in my thoughts with you! 
I never hear the strains of magnificent music, a 
Hungarian rhapsody, a sonorous Beethoven sonata, 
unless I feel that the divine spirit which is revealed 
through them as it is revealed in the air, the light, 
and the clouds of heaven, is incarnated in part in 
my girl wife! A melodious Schubert song speaks of 
her. For what is more lovely, more consummately 
perfect than the purity of youth,- the dawning grace 
of womanhood? {He rises and approaches her with 
outstretched arms.) And now do you comprehend 
how I cannot for a moment bring myself to abide the 
thought of resigning you to another, you the one 
thing I value beyond compare! Let adversity strip 
me of all I have wrested in toil and sweat from the 
grudging earth, leaving you only, my fairest treasure, 
my gem of gems, and I remain a rich man beyond the 
dreams of other men's avarice! {With a smile of 
wistful entreaty.) My little one, you have been 
dazzled by this young man's looks and address, you 
have been fascinated by the dashing ways of the 
citizen of the world, but it was only the temporary 
infatuation of idle and restless moments and reached 
not to the deeper fibers of your affection, and 
now your eyes are opened. {Still smiling, he bends 
over her. In a voice of exquisite winning tenderness.) 



ACT III 115 

You know now it was not genuine, and that there is 
only one you truly love. {His voice sinks to a 
whisper.) You are sorry. You are going to confess 
that to your husband. {He pauses. Irene conceals her 
face. He speaks again very gently.) My dearest, a 
relation such as we two bear to one another conse- 
crated by the Creator of life, sanctioned by human 
laws, is not lightly put aside. Together we entered 
upon those domestic interests that strengthen the bonds 
of wedded love, those intimate confidences that hallow 
it and unite one to the other more closely; together 
we entered upon those sacred joys belonging only to 
the one man and to the one woman. And the primal 
innocence you brought to me was not more virgin than 
the innocence I brought to you! My wife, could 
you go to another, you who have yielded yourself 
to me, who in the silent hours of the night, gathered 
close in these arms that would shield you from the 
whole world, have lain upon this heart whose deep 
pulsations have spoken its message to yours, — have 
felt these lips pressed upon your lips in ecstatic kisses? 
Ah, no, no! 

Irene — ^You torture me! {Shrinks from him.) 
Oh, I cannot bear it! 

LoNGWORTHY — Does not my appeal of yearning 
tenderness, my passion of tremulous hope — my de- 
spair — move you? 

Irene — Say no more if you have any pity! 

LoNGWORTHY — {In a stricken voice.) I have lost! 
{Rises and advances to Keith.) You are the victor, 
for in you the insolence of youth and education has 
triumphed. What chance had I, a poor common man, 



ii6 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

against such odds? What a fatuous hope that I 
could keep this untamed bird from beating her wild 
wings against the bars of the dull cage in which I 
had confined her! ... In you two, I had from the 
first a peculiar interest. In her because of her in- 
experience, her helplessness, and her sex; in you, be- 
cause ini the days of my father's extremity, your 
grandfather more than once came to his aid. I re- 
solved then, if it were ever within my power to show 
my gratitude for the services he rendered my family 
in their stress, I would do the Major a good turn. 

Keith — {Exultantly.) And now that the chance 
has at last presented itself, you will do the one thing 
which will effectuate the happiness of his grandson. 

LoNGWORTHY — {Unheeding the interruption.) 
Later when you grew into boyhood, I saw my chance 
to repay the debt of his many kindnesses for, good 
as was his will, he was unable to give you the ad- 
vantages of a more advanced scholarship. I made in- 
quiries concerning you. I learned you were a brilliant 
and promising boy and I then found my opportunity 
at hand. 

Keith — {In a bewildered voice.) You then found 
your opportunity at hand? What do you mean? . . . 
Am I to understand that my university education 
in this country and abroad I owe to you? 

LoNGWORTHY — It was my one occasion to repay 
the Major. 

Keith — ^You are the unknown benefactor! 

LoNGWORTHY — Did you not, then, surmise it? 

Keith — Surmise it? It never entered my head! 
I would rather it were any one else save you. {Sinks 



ACT III 117 

heavily into a chair, his arms falling limply down. 
In a strained voice.) You are well requited. 

LoNGWORTHY — Don't take that too deeply to heart. 
I am sorry I told you. I thought you had guessed it. 

Keith — {Springing to his feet.) Oh, that I had, 
that I had! 

LoNGWORTHY — (Quietly.) For so long I have 
stood in a protecting relation toward you, as also later 
toward her, that in my feelings for you both there is 
an element of paternalism, and it will not be difficult 
for me who am so much your senior to soon bring my- 
self to regarding you as my children. 

Keith — (Walking distractedly to and fro.) Could 
my position be more utterly desperate? I believe I 
am the most miserable man on this earth and the best 
thing for me to do is to end it all with a bullet in 
my brain! 

LoNGWORTHY — Don't talk extravagantly. Let us 
be sensible and adopt the only sane course in this 
matter that is open to us. You have won. Now 
listen! It is my wish you continue coming here as 
before, a friend of us both. You will receive the 
same hospitality, you will act as escort to her as 
formerly. You will control your ardor and be patient 
and restrained until this matter can be quietly ar- 
ranged in a manner that will avoid busy prattling and 
scandal. Leave it to me. I promise you I will do all 
in my power to bring it as speedily as possible to a 
settlement that will be satisfactory to you both. My 
sister has just told me she is to be married this after- 
noon. I want to caution you not to destroy her pleas- 
ure in this great event and upset her peace of mind 



ii8 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

by letting her know of this. {He turns away.) 

Irene — {In a voice of thrilling anguish.) Joe! 
Where are you going? 

LoNGWORTHY — I am going out for a brief time, but 
I shall be back to see my sister off. 

Irene — I am a wretched little beast! {Throws 
herself on him.) 

LoNGWORTHY — Don't distress yourself, dearie. I 
am not reproaching you, am I? 

Irene — Oh, if you only would, it would be some 
relief ! 

LoNGWORTHY — ^This thing has happened without 
intention on your part. It has come unawares. 
{Stroking her hair.) There, there! 

Irene — You try to put the best construction you 
can on my behavior. 

LoNGWORTHY — {In Surprise.) Why shouldn't I? 
Was it not as I said? 

Irene — I meant to flirt with him a little, just for 
the zest of making a conquest of him, as girls who feel 
themselves safe like the excitement of attracting the 
admiration of unattached men and bringing them to 
their feet. And before I knew it 

LoNGWORTHY — ^The fire burned you. 

Irene — It came; I don't know how, but all at 
once the first I knew I was absorbed by It, for It 
had entered my heart and fully possessed it. I wanted 
to be in his presence, to gaze upon his face, to hear 
him speak, to see his smile bent upon me. And I 
found myself, in the brief intervals of his absence, 
restless, unable to settle down to any occupation, 
awaiting with feverish expectancy the time when he 



ACT III 119 

would come again, anxiously listening for his ring, the 
sound of his voice in the hall below. I can only liken 
It, Joe, to the delirium of some strange malady that 
laid my entire being under an imperious spell against 
my better sense and judgment, filling my brain with 
wild fancies. ... It was all so different than with you, 
who were so big and quiet and earnest and for whom 
I felt such respect that I stood in half awe of you. I 
felt none of that with him, he was careless and jesting 
and gay, and it was always good-humored raillery and 
laughter and play-making. Rarely were we serious 
and seldom meant what we said, or said what we 
meant. I am so sorry it has happened, but I couldn't 
help it! I have been like a ship on the great waves 
of the ocean, tossed hither and thither by the force 
of the tempest! {In a choked voice.) I tell you I 
couldn't help it! 

LoNGWORTHY — I understand. 

Irene — Most men would be so enraged, so im- 
placable, making no allowances. 

LoNGWORTHY — Would that have changed any- 
thing? 

Irene — I ought to have confessed all to you and 
begged you to save me, but I was a coward and it 
was so alluring — so sweet! {Lays her head against his 
breast. With the wistful entreaty of a child.) I 
wanted him! I wanted him, Joe. 

LoNGWORTHY — Suppose you get ready some sort of 
a spread for the wedding party when they return — 
not anything elaborate but just a little family breakfast 
to show our attention. 

Keith — Do you wish any one outside, sir, to be 



I20 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

invited ? 

LoNGWORTHY — Only the Major, besides our own 
immediate family. Six are enough. 

Irene — I will at once set about it. 

LoNGWORTHY — ^That's right. 

Irene — Please kiss me just once, Joe, so that I will 
know you do not harbor hard feelings toward me. Oh, 
I am such an ungrateful, wicked wretch! 

LoNGWORTHY — {Patting her head.) Don't grieve, 
little heart. Exit Longworthy. 

(Ketthj his hands thrust deep in his pockets, takes 
two or three restless turns around the room.) 

Keith — ^This is a most extraordinary situation and 
there has been granted far more than I had dared to 
hope for. He is a royal trump to lose so gamely. Now 
that I have found I owe him so much, I wish it hadn't 
been he. (Gloomily.) It seems so damned ungrate- 
ful to make such a return to the poor old duffer! 
(More cheerfully.) Well, it can't be helped. . . . 
Your husband, Irene, is not one to do things by halves, 
for his capitulation has been unconditional. He has 
acceded to everything that will ultimately secure our 
union. 

Irene — (In a strained voice.) He is only thinking 
of me — of my happiness. 

Keith — ^The man is an out and out dead sport. 

Irene — Only one man in ten thousand men could 
have been capable of an act of such self-renunciation. 
He is not considering himself — ^he is only concerned 
with me. 

Keith — It makes it less troublesome for us, for now 



ACT III 121 

he will help instead of hindering us, as so many resent- 
ful husbands would do. {He approaches her.) Well? 
{Looks at her steadily with an exultant smile.) Well? 
{Draws close to her and puts his arm around her 
shoulders. Irene, with a smart slap on his cheek, jerks 
quickly away.) 

Keith — ^What? 

Irene — {Angrily.) You forget the one proviso he 
imposed, which is to be patient and restrained until 
this matter is adjusted. If you break it, I warn you 
I shall refuse to see you again alone, or indeed permit 
you to come here at all until you can promise to live 
up to it. 

Keith — {Lightly.) All right, I promise. I'll 
make it up to myself after we are married. 

Irene — {In a wondering voice.) After we are 
married ! It is such a queer thought. {Puts her hand 
to her brow.) Everything turned around and I living 
with another man. It will be having two husbands. 
There is something downright indelicate about it. I 
wonder if divorced women always feel so. 

Keith — {Facetiously.) A change of partners for 
the dance. 

Irene — {With an offended air.) It is not a jesting 
matter, Cecil, and, anyway, the joke is a very coarse 
one that grates awfully. 

Keith — I beg your pardon, Fm a student, you know. 

Irene — ^A student can have nice feeling. 

Keith — Oh, come now! I am humbly contrite. 
I'll go down on my knees if it will conciliate you. 

Irene — {Smiling.) You needn't exhibit any mon- 
key shines. {With a hustling air of importance.) I 



122 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

have got to get busy right away in the dining-room. 
I am going to press Nellie in my service to get out the 
best china, the cut glass and the rose-pattern damask 
tablecloth and napkins sister Pleione embroidered with 
my monogram. And, oh, Cecil, do you want to do 
an errand for me? 

Keith — {Gallantly.) Of course! A hundred! 

Irene — ^Well, I'll be content for you to do two. 
Get at the florist's two dozen pink roses for a center- 
piece and a box of smilax. And go either to Gimbel's 
or Macy's and buy me six yards of pink satin ribbon 
an inch and a half wide. 

Keith — ^What do you want of six yards of ribbon? 

Irene — ^To trim the table, you stupid! I will my- 
self 'phone to a caterer to send a quart of chicken salad, 
ice cream in fancy shapes for six, two kinds of choice 
wedding cake, lady fingers and macaroons; yes, and a 
big white bride cake. It would be a wedding collation 
with the wedding left out if I forgot that! Nellie 
will make her nice coffee. {With exaggerated cheer- 
fulness.) Now I've got to run along, little boy, be- 
cause I've got so much to see to and to dress and 
everything in time for the wedding party to sit down 
to breakfast! You won't forget the ribbon and roses, 
Cecil? 

Keith — I never forget anything intrusted to me, 

kid. I'll go while the commission is fresh in my mind. 

Exit Irene, folloived by Keith. 

For a few brief moments the stage is empty. 
Reenter Keith, wearing his overcoat, his hat on his 
head, and drawing on his gloves. He makes several 



ACT III 123 

irresolute turns around the roonij turns his eyes with 
slow wistful glances from object to object, as though 
trying to impress them on his memory. Moves toward 
the door, wavers in his purpose and comes back. Goes 
to the mantel and takes from it a small photograph of 
Irene set in a tiny oval frame of silver. Gazes at the 
picture long and earnestly, and puts it, with a quick 
movement, in his breast pocket. Buttons his overcoat 
carefully over his breast. Leans against the mantel, 
his elbow on it, and pushing his hat a little back from 
his forehead supports his cheek on his hand. He re- 
mains thus a brief time in absorbed thought. Slowly 
he straightens himself and with lingering backward 
glances, goes out. 

Again for a few brief moments the stage is empty. 

Reenter Major Faring and Peter Taggart. 

Scene VI 

Major Farincj — {Drawing a deep sighing breath.) 
I tell you, we've done a good morning's work, Peter. 
If it only ends as well as it has begun, you will have 
no complaint to make. {By the aid of his cane moves 
heavily across the room into a chair.) 

Taggart — I'm well satisfied. {Raising his voice.) 
Hello! Where's everybody? Pleione, have you run 
away? 

Reenter Mrs. Nearing, wearing a trim tailor-made 
street gown. 

Mrs. Nearing — I've just got around and changed 
my dress. 

Taggart — Have you got your duds together? 



124 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Mrs. Nearing — Everything is packed and in my 
trunk. 

Taggart — Good. We've had some strenuous work 
this morning, the Major and I, trying to get wind 
of a sky pilot. 

Mrs. Nearing — Of a what? 

Taggart — Domine — parson — minister of the gospel. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^Your want of respect for sacred 
things is shocking! 

Taggart — ^You'll soon reform me, but to my story. 
We entered into the first hotel we ran up against and 
got the 'phone directory and called up half a dozen 
of their reverences, and it just seemed downright im- 
possible to get access to a blamed one of the gentry. 
This one, we learned from wife or servant, had gone 
out of town, that one was on some business down in 
the city, another was out motoring or officiating at a 
funeral, or enjoying some other function, filling an 
engagement to lunch, or what not. Well, after the 
sixth trial of these domines, our luck changed, for 
the Reverend Munkewitz was home and himself an- 
swered my call and signified himself as not averse to 
the business of making us man and wife. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^The Reverend what did I under- 
stand you to say? 

Taggart — ^The Reverend Munkewitz, I said. To 
be more explicit, the Reverend Simeon Munkewitz. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Sinking into a chair.) Oh, my 
dear Peter, will not that awful name be likely to prove 
an evil omen to our marriage? 

Taggart — Certainly not. That's rank superstition, 
Pleione. 



ACT III 125 

Mrs. Nearing — {Faintly.) When is this Reverend 
— this — er — clergyman to perform the ceremony? 

Taggart — Right now. He's at the parsonage wait- 
ing for us and we've got an automobile outside to take 
us there. 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, it's too precipitate altogether! 

Major Faring — Don't you think it! Mind this, 
Pleione, my girl, when you can find a parson in this 
big wilderness of a place, you want to clamp him down 
quick. Evidently there isn't much need of 'em here, 
for they aren't lyin' around loose, as they are at home, 
ready at hand at all seasons. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^This Babylon is given over to the 
devices of Satan. 

Taggart — ^A Bedlam to the devices of Beelzebub. 
Come, get your things on. 

Mrs. Nearing — ^And the license — have you got the 
license? 

Taggart — {Drawing a paper from his breast.) 
Here is the document. Fill out a few of these ques- 
tions, will you, Pleione? {Hands her his fountain 
pen.) Tell the State how old you are. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Belligerently.) I'll tell no one 
how old I am! {Glancing over the paper.) If I've 
got to answer that, I back out! I refuse to get mar- 
ried! 

Taggart — Oh, nonsense! 

Mrs. Nearing — It's a perfect nuisance that a couple 
can't get married without being forced to turn inside 
out their entire private history that is no one's concern 
save their own. 

Taggart — {Jocosely.) Vital statistics, Pleione. 



126 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Mrs. Nearing — It's no one's business but mine! 
Why should I be made to commit m3^self as to age in 
black and white? Sooner than answer such an impu- 
dent question, I'll quit. 

Taggart — {Jestingly.) Well, juggle it a little. 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, that wouldn't be honest! I 
couldn't deliberatelj' tell an untruth. And they could 
take me up for false affirmation, couldn't they? 

Taggart — {With counterfeited gravity.) When 
they foand it out they probably would annul the mar- 
riage altogether, confiscate your property and ciap 
you in prison for life. WTiat do you care about putting 
your age on that paper ? Those who see it neither know 
nor indeed ever before heard of you or me. 

Mrs. Nearing — I wasn't bothered with such pesky 
things as licenses when I married my first husband. 

Taggart — Never mind him. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Testily and beginning to write.) 
The loafers we keep up at Albany must have something 
to show in order to give some little account of their 
time, I suppose, hence this precious document. 

Taggart — ^Where's Irene? 

Mrs. Nearing — Oh, Irene's busy! She won't let 
me go into the dining-room. I imagine she is preparing 
some kind of a surprise for us. 

Major Faring — ^Where's my grandson? 

Mrs. Nearing — {Still writing.) I haven't seen 
him since you went away. He isn't with Irene and 
so he must have gone. 

Taggart — Never mind, Major. You will act as 
witness and we can call downtown to his office for 
Joe. 



ACT III 127 

Irene's voice — Sister Pleione, why don't you get 
married in your own house, instead of going off to some 
strange place? 

Mrs. Nearing — (Shortly.) Because it isn't my 
house ! 

Taggart — ^A parsonage is just as well, and the 
atmosphere perhaps a little more hallowed. 

Mrs. Nearing — (Handing him the document and 
his pen.) Peter, my first husband never indulged in 
such unbecoming jests. 

Taggart — Bother him! Forget it! Now go and 
get your things on, Pleione. We mustn't keep the Rev- 
erend Munkewitz waiting. 

Exit Mrs. Nearing. 

Major Faring — It does beat all, if wimmin ain't 
the most curious contradictory creatures! I've lived 
with one steady over and above fifty years an' I ain't 
solved the puzzle yet. 

Taggart — Because they are so unexpected they 
baffle 3'ou at every turn. They are always springing a 
surprise on a chap. Would you dream a sensible 
mature woman like Pleione, now, would balk on her 
age or even give a hang who was wise to it, when 
if she stops to think a minute, she must know that all 
of us can figure it pretty close within a year or so. 

Major Faring — ^They are all alike on that matter, 
from the college misses, who have regular mutinies 
with the census men, to the female of uncertain years 
with false teeth and gray hairs. Bless you, the ma- 
turer they are the more sensitive they grow! One 
would suppose it was a crime to add experience to 
one's life, which alone gives any real value to it. Now 



128 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

there is my Letitla. She was seventy-four last August, 
and do you think she wants any reference made about 
it ? No siree ! She's as touchy on that question as any 
girl gittin' past the marketable age. She's always tellin' 
about Mrs. Jones an' Mrs. Smith bein' so many years 
older than she, an' that this an' that there thing hap- 
pened when she was the tiniest little slip of a girl, 
so that she has just a dim recollection of it. It's re- 
markable, Peter. You can't hardly conceive of their 
strange quirks an' their inconsistencies, you bein' a 
bachelor without much practical acquaintance with 
'em. But now you will have opportunity to find out 
a few soon enough. 

Reenter Mrs. Nearing in outdoor wrappings, wear- 
ing a stylish long coat of navy blue, a small modish 
hat of blue with an aigrette, and a veil, and with fur 
stole and large muff. 

Mrs. Nearing — {Glancing from one to the other.) 
I'm ready. (Sighs deeply.) Well, I am about out of 
breath, hurrying so. 

Taggart — (Rising.) You deserve a compliment for 
being so prompt, but then, you always do everything 
on time without any fuss. (Regarding her approv- 
ingly.) How nice you look! (Approaches her.) 

Mrs. Nearing — (Evading him with a primly co- 
quettish air.) Don't on any account touch me and dis- 
arrange my hat or I won't look well for the ceremony. 

Taggart — I want you to look your tip-top best. 
Well, come, Major. 

Exeunt the three. Major Faring going first and Tag- 
gart following, escorting Mrs. Nearing, his hand on 
her arm. 



ACT III 129 

Reenter Longworthy from an inner door. He is 
ready to go out, and wears a long, closely-buttoned 
ulster that accentuates his height and noble propor- 
tions. He carries a suit case. He passes swiftly through 
the room and to the outer door. 

Irene's voice — {In silvery accents.) Is that you, 
Cecil? Have you brought the ribbon? I am waiting 
for it. {Longworthy stops short with his hand on the 
door-knob and stands motionless.) 

Irene's voice — {In caroling, joyous crescendo.) 
Ce-cil! Why don't you answer? {Enter Irene, with 
neck craned around to one side, her efforts concentrated 
on hooking the back of her rose crepe de chine gown.) 

Scene VII 

Irene — It seems to me you're pretty slow for a 
squire of dames, Mister. I have been on the jump 
every minute since you left and I began worrying you 
had forgotten. {Petulantly.) I give it up; I just can't 
do it alone! {She raises her eyes. In a changed voice.) 
Oh, it's you! Where did you come from? 

Longworthy — From our — the bedroom, where I've 
been gathering up a few things. Here, let me do that. 
{He removes his gloves and begins hooking the back 
with slow, difficult fingers.) 

Irene — I didn't know you were in the house. Why, 
how your fingers fumble! 

Longworthy — Do they? They're so big. 

Irene — But never clumsy like this. {Her eyes fall 
on the suit case.) Where are you going? 

Longworthy — ^To take the train. 



I30 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Irene — Not now? 

LONGWORTHY — ^YeS. 

Irene — -But you said you would return to see your 
sister off. 

Longworthy — (Quietly.) I concluded not. You 
will tell her I was called suddenly away on very im- 
portant business, in truth to take charge of this min- 
ing corporation's interests, and she will not be offended. 

Irene — ^And you were going without saying good-by 
to me, indeed, without my knowing it? 

Longworthy — It seemed best. I left a note for 
you on the dresser, Irene, explaining my intentions to- 
ward you. I will now tell you the gist of what it con- 
tained. I have had a brief interview with Saxson, Mar- 
grave and Company, my lawyers, and bankers, and 
talked this matter over with the senior partner and 
with the result I have left everything in their hands and 
they will communicate with you very soon. I go Far 
West. This is the way it has been roughly arranged. 
I go Far West without consulting you or without 
your knowledge of my destination. After an interval 
of waiting, and of not hearing firom me, you will file 
a petition for divorce on the grounds of my desertion 
of you. It will be necessary, if I understand rightly, 
for you to go over the State line either into New 
Jersey or Pennsylvania to take up your residence. 
These attorneys will direct your moves and endeavor 
to have you spared as much as possible of annoyance 
and publicity. If you choose to bring your action to 
New Jersey, after you have resided there two years, 
your suit can be brought up before the Court of 
Chancery; if you elect Pennsylvania, you can apply 



ACT III 131 

for your divorce after one year's residence. But in 
either of these States you will not get your decree 
under two years following my desertion. You can 
save tedious delay by going West ; Dakota and Nevada 
divorces, however, are not held in much esteem. In 
any case, your cause of action being sufficient, event- 
ually you will get your bill and attain to your com- 
plete freedom. You are to retain the furniture of 
these apartments, also you will have clear your father's 
house in Odysseus. And in addition, I have arranged 
to settle some property on you that will ensure you 
a modest financial independence. That is all, I be- 
lieve. You see it is very simple. 

Irene — {In a strained voice.) Oh, yes, very 
simple ! 

LoNGWORTHY — {Consulting his watch.) If I am 
to catch my train I must go. {He picks up his suit 
case.) 

Irene — ^There is no hurry. If you can't make that 
train, you can another, and when a man is going away 
forever from his wife he can afford the last time to 
spend a few minutes with her. 

Longworthy — {With a wintry smile.) But you 
are no longer my wife. 

Irene — True! I forgot. But you should, in 
common decency to your sister, stay here to the wed- 
ding collation. You don't know how lovely the table 
is going to look, Joe. I have thought out such a pretty 
color scheme — pink and green. 

Longworthy — {Laconically.) I cannot stay. 

Irene — One should put one's feelings aside at such 
a time. You will spoil the entire party, and your poor 



132 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

sister so many years getting married to the man she 
loves! 

LoNGWORTHY — I am sorry, but you will explain how 
I was called suddenly away, {Turns to the door.) 

Irene — {In a low voice.) And you are not even 
going to kiss me good-by when you expect never to see 
me again! It's unlike you to be so unthinking of me. 

{Longworthy looks at her^ pauses irresolutely, then 
setting down his suit case, strides to her and takes her 
by the shoulders. Holding her from him, he looks long 
in her eyes with a deep yearning tenderness ; he puts 
back her hair from her brow, gazes at her again, and 
then with a sudden passion strains her to his breast; 
pressing back her head, he kisses her brow, her closed 
eyes, her lips. Releases her without a word.) 

Irene — {With quivering lips.) If you loved me as 
you claimed you did, you could not bring yourself to go 
off like this. You could not bring your mind to exile 
yourself. 

Longworthy — It is because I love you that I am 
going off like this! It is because I believe that my 
withdrawal will conduce to your fullest happiness that 
I exile myself! 

Irene — ^You would wait a little, at least, to see how 
things are coming out. 

Longworthy — It is preposterous; out of the ques- 
tion for me to remain here when your affections, as you 
have confessed to me, are given to that young man 
to whom you are so near in age, with whom you 
share so much. I can see now how serious and irre- 
mediable a mistake it was on my part to have tried to 
bind you to an old prosaic chap who had so little in 



ACT III 133 

common with your youth when you had had such scant 
opportunity to see and judge other men and to choose 
for yourself. 

Irene — ^You could not have shown such supreme 
coldness and indifference as you have done. 

LoNGWORTHY — Don't let's discuss my behavior. 
My God, am I a man of stone! 

Irene — ^You seem already aloof from me, to have 
withdrawn yourself, — so far away in spirit. Joe! 

LoNGWORTHY — {With a supreme effort at self- 
possession.) It is only because you do not know me. 
{His lips quiver into a twisted smile.) If you did, you 
would not reproach me thus. 

Irene — {Passionately.) If you had ever really 
truly cared for me as a strong man like you should care 
for a woman, you would not have relinquished me with 
so little ado. You would have striven for me! Yes, 
you would have fought as elemental men used to fight 
in the long ago to have and to hold the women they 
coveted ! 

LoNGWORTHY — {Gently.) What do you want, my 
child? 

Irene — {Bursting into wild tears.) I want you to 
stay! 

LoNGWORTHY — Don't you see how impossible it is 
for me to stay? 

Irene — {Unheeding.) You will go off there in the 
woolly West where I will never see you any more and 
marry some other woman. 

LoNGWORTHY — But you will have no time to worry 
about such a contingency, because you will be so ab- 
sorbed in your own husband and children. 



134 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Irene — ^You can stay here and remain my friend. 

LoNGWORTHY — (Gravely,) I am always that, but 
I can serve you best by taking myself away. 

Irene — But to whom am I going for advice, who 
will direct me in emergency? 

LoNGWORTHY — ^When at any time you are in grave 
trouble or are in need, however far distant I may be, 
I will come to you, if I am living, — even from the 
ends of the earth. Now don't distress yourself any 
more grieving over what is done. . . Don't cry, 
little one, for it is more than I can bear. (Cheerily.) 
Bless me, it's almost train time now. I haven't a 
minute to spare! If I make it, Hanson will have to 
shave close on the speed laws! Exit in haste. 

(Irene remains several seconds glancing about her 
in a bewildered way. Then she rushes distractedly to 
the door, opens it. 

Irene — (Calling.) Joe! (Listens.) 

Irene — (In a voice of frenzied anguish.) Joe! 
He's gone, he's gone! (Comes back, flings herself on 
the couch and bursts into a tempest of wild sobbing, 
rocking back and forth. Unheeded by her, there 
sounds a ring of the bell, and shortly the maid enters 
bearing a large florist's box.) 

Maid — It was just left here by the florist's boy. 
(Stops aghast.) Why, Mrs. Longworthy, what has 
happened? Have you received bad news? 

Irene — Oh, nothing, nothing at all! (Rising.) 
I haven't any sort of news. Why, those must be the 
roses Mr. Keith has sent for the decoration. (Opens 
the box and there are revealed four dozen of pink roses 



ACT III 135 

and a quantity of smilax. A small tissue parcel discloses 
the pink satin ribbon.) 

Maid — {With a cry of delight at sight of roses.) 
Aren't they lovely — so fresh and fragrant! Oh, Mrs. 
Longworthy, isn't it a pity they must so soon perish ! 

Irene — ( Tragically.) Everything must soon perish, 
Nellie, — youth and beauty and with them love, all that 
makes life worth living! (Picks itp a card and reads.) 
Compliments of Cecil Gordon Keith. Take them to 
the dining-room, Nellie, and I will be there directly. 

Exit the maid. 

Reenter Major Faring, Peter Taggart and Mrs. 
Pleione Nearing-Taggart. 

Major Faring — {Heavily crossing the room by the 
aid of his cane.) Well, the knot's tied; that's out of 
our systems an' I, for one, feel better, an' now we can 
get out of the tumult an' hubbub of this jammed-in 
Bedlam at the first opportunity. How do you feel, 
Peter; any different from usual? 

Taggart — I feel buoyant. Major, in the very tip- 
top of spirits, as a man should feel who has corralled 
every good thing this earth contains. I am as extrava- 
gantly, jubilantly happy as any mortal could ever hope 
to be. 

Major Faring — ^And how about you, Pleione? 

Mrs. Pleione Nearing-Taggart — I am not as 
superlative as Peter, but I am very happy. {Taggart 
kisses her cheek.) 

Major Faring — That's right. Keep it up. 

Mrs. Taggart — I shall do my part toward keeping 
it up. (To Irene.) Why, what's the matter with you, 



136 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

child ? You appear as woe-begone as though you'd lost 
your last friend. 

Irene — {With an effort at indifference.) Nothing 
is the matter. 

Mrs. Taggart — ^You look as though you'd been cry- 
ing your eyes out. Something must be the matter. ( To 
Taggart.) It's strange we didn't find Joe at his 
office. It was up to him to keep within reach. When 
I saw him at the house whilst I was packing this 
morning and I told him I was to be married this after- 
noon, he promised he would be present at the ceremony. 
Where could he have been? 

Irene — He was here packing his things to go West. 
He said I was to tell you he was called suddenly away 
on important business. 

Mrs. Taggart — {Pursing her lips.) It must have 
been of an extremely pressing nature! That's very 
queer that he should rush ofE at such a time as this 
without seeing me. It is not like him! 

Irene — He said that I was to explain how he was 
called suddenly away and you would not be offended. 

Mrs. Taggart — {With asperity.) But I am of- 
fended that he should show so little respect to his only 
living sister to whom he has always been so devoted, 
as to leave here so unceremoniously on the greatest 
occasion of her life. WTiere did you say he was going? 

Irene — He was going West to that mining cor- 
poration place. 

Mrs. Taggart — {Sharply.) But where — what lo- 
cality? 

Irene — {Vaguely.) Why — er — Indiana, 

Mrs. Taggart — {With growing sharpness.) 



ACT III 137 

There aren't any mines in Indiana that I ever heard 
of. What are you talking about? 

Irene — Oklahoma — Seattle {Bursts into 

tears.) My head aches, I don't remember where it 
was he was going. 

Taggart — {To Mrs. Taggart.) Don't torment 
her with questions. Can't you see she is all broken 
up by his leaving? 

Mrs. Taggart — {Persisting.) That shouldn't 
prevent her from knowing his destination. 

Taggart — Never mind. We'll all know in good 
time. 

Major Faring — Now I think about it, it seems to 
me mighty funny Cecil doesn't show up here. 

Taggart — {Jocosely.) You can't keep track of 
young chaps. Their goings and their comings are not 
reducible to the laws of calculation, for they are as 
uncertain as the changes of the weather. 

Mrs, Taggart — And think, in their conceit, that 
the fate of the world hangs on those goings and com- 
ings. 

Irene — I assure you he will be here shortly, for he 
knows a surprise I have planned for you. 

Mrs. Taggart — {In affected wonder.) You have 
planned a surprise? 

Irene — Yes, something very novel. 

Taggart — ^We are all curiosity. 

Irene — ^You'll know in a very few minutes what 
it is. {Rises. A knock sounds on the door imme- 
diately followed by the entrance of a strange gentle- 
man.) 



138 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

Scene VHI 

Strange Gentleman — {Advancing and looking 
from one to another.) Is Mrs. Longworthy here? 

Irene — {JVith startled glance.) I am Mrs. Long- 
worthy. 

Strange Gentleman — I am sorry to be the mes- 
senger of bad news, madam, but it is imperative you 
know it. Your husband's automobile, in making a 
sharp curve, going at a high rate of speed, collided 
vidth another car and the impact was of such force as 
to hurl your husband and his chauffeur through the 
wind-shield violently to the pavement. {Mrs. Taggart 
emits a gasping cry.) 

Strange Gentleman — I beg you not to be too 
much alarmed, ladies. Whilst Mr. Longworthy is 
stunned by the shock of the fall and cut by the broken 
glass, I do not think his injuries, though severe, are of 
a vital nature. 

Irene — {With her hand pressed to her heart, and 
speaking in a quiet, controlled voice.) Where is he? 

Strange Gentleman — I brought him in my own 
car and men are assisting him here. {Goes to the door 
and motions.) 

Enter two men supporting Longworthy on each side, 
who is dragged slowly and heavily along. His face is 
bruised and blood-stained, his eyes are wide open and 
stare unseeingly ahead. His ulster is draggled and torn. 
They bring him to the couch and with much effort and 
difficulty lift and lay him down upon it. 

Irene moves quickly forward and bends over him. 
Mechanically he raises his hand to his head, groans 



ACT III 139 

deeply and sinks into unconsciousness. 

Mrs. Taggart — {In a low voice.) I will get 
water and bathe his poor face. 

Exit Mrs. Taggart hurriedly. 

{Taggart speaks a few words to the strange man.) 

Exeunt the three. 

{Irene goes upon her knees beside the couch, unbut- 
tons Longworthy's ulster and removes the gloves from 
his hands.) 

Irene — {In a low, supplicating voice.) Joe! 

{Longworthy, opening his eyes, looks at her 
strangely a moment and then slowly the light of recog- 
nition dawns in them.) 

Irene — Joe, dearest, it is I, your little one, your 
Irene. 

LoNGWORTHY — {With a faint smile.) My best 
girl! {A spasm of pain contracts his brow and he 
closes his eyes again.) 
Reenter Mrs. Taggart with a basin of warm water. 

{She unloosens his collar, smooths back his hair and 
tenderly washes the blood from his bruised face. Then 
she rises and talks aside with Taggart and the Major. 
Irene, still on her knees, lightly strokes Longworthy's 
brow and presses her lips humbly again and again to 
his toil-worn hand. He stirs and groans.) 

Irene — {Slowly and distinctly.) I want my hus- 
band. I want him only — I want him always. Do you 
know who it is saying this, Joe? 

Longworthy — {Trying to smile.) It is you . . . 
little bride. . . . {Makes a slight movement to draw 
her to him, murmurs some inaudible words and lapses 



I40 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

again into unconsciousness.) 

Mrs. Taggart — {Clasping and unclasping her 
hands. ) Oh, I wish the doctor those men called would 
get here! 

{Taggart restlessly moves about the room. Irene 
remains bent over Longworthy.) 

A sharp ring of the bell sounds. 

Taggart opens the door and returns with a letter. 

Taggart — ^A messenger with this special delivery 
letter. {Examining the address.) It is directed to 
Longworthy. 

Mrs. Taggart^ — ^Then you have my permission to 
open it. Being a special, it must be of urgent impor- 
tance and he would wish us to know its contents in 
order to act for him if necessary. It probably relates 
to this mysterious trip he was in such wild haste to 
make. 

Taggart — {To Irene.) Shall we open this letter, 
Irene? {Irene j stroking Longworthy' s brow and mur- 
muring softly to him, unheeds.) 

Mrs. Taggart — I take the responsibility. 

{Taggart tears open the envelope and there falls 
to the floor a slip of folded paper. Reads aloud.) 

Mr. Joel Longworthy^ 
My Dear Sir: 

I feel that there is just one man in ten thousand 
men who possesses the heroism that would make pos- 
sible an act of such supreme renunciation as yours of 
this morning. When the truth was disclosed to me then 
for the first time of what I owe you, when the knowl- 
edge was impressed upon my mind then for the first 



ACT III 141 

time of the immense obligations under which you have 
placed me for my man's chance, my highest opportuni- 
ties in the world, it took only little reflection to bring 
home to me the impossibility of accepting a sacrifice 
on your part that would have convicted me in my own 
conscience of the basest ingratitude. 

Whilst I realize the futility of making adequate 
repayment of a debt of such magnitude, I have hope 
to make at least a measure of return to you by showing 
you through the winning of success and perhaps even 
some notable achievement, that your generous bene- 
factions have not been thrown away and that I am 
both able and desirous to do credit to your efforts in 
my behalf. 

I am apprised through this morning's mail that I 
have secured one of the University positions which 
I was seeking, and I am starting for the Far West to 
enter directly upon its duties. You will find enclosed 
the amount of this month's allowance. I have enough 
means through the sale of some poems and an article 
in one of the magazines to defray the expenses of my 
journey. 

Thanking you for all past favors and assuring you 
of my fixed intention to prove myself worthy of your 
patronage, I remain, sir. 

With deepest respect, 

Cecil Gordon Keith. 

Mrs. Taggart — Ah, I begin to get the threads of 
this tangle! 

Major Faring — ^What's that? (Stoops and picks 
up the folded slip.) A check to Joe Longworthy. 



142 CAPTAIN OF THE HOST 

What's my boy sending checks to him for ? 

Taggart — ^You don't understand, Kit. It's the 
last allowance made your grandson through Saxson, 
Margrave and Company, retun;ed to Joe with Cecil's 
endorsement. 

Major Faring — {In bewilderment.) But I'm all 
at sea! What's this talk in the boy's letter about obli- 
gations an' benefactions an' favors? Do you mean 
me to understand that the man behind Saxson, Mar- 
grave an' Company is Joel Longworthy? 

Taggart — Exactly that. 

Major Faring — Do you mean me to understand 
that it \s he who has been educatin' my boy all these 
years ? 

Taggart — None other! 

Major Faring — Such a thought never entered my 
head! By heaven, but I am confounded! Why in 
the name of all mystery should he do it? 

Irene — Because he wanted to show his apprecia- 
tion of your kindness to his father in time of need. 

Major Faring — ^Well — I'll — be — ^jiggered ! 

Irene — {In a voice of restrained joy.) Oh, sister 
Pleione, I felt a feeble pressure on my hand! He is 
coming back. He will not leave me! 

{A quick imperative ring sounds.) 

Mrs. Taggart — ^Thank God, the doctor! 

Curtain 



THE SUPREME TEST 

A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

Oressa Holliday A Woman of Genius 

Mr. Benn Holliday Oressa s Father 

Mrs. Benn Holliday Oressa's Mother 

Virginia Holliday Oressa's Sister 

Members of 
Parnassus Circle 

Armand Duquet Playwriffht and Idealist 

Carroll Leavenworth Playwright 

Duncan MacLachlan Dramatic Critic 

Eugene. Davies Novelist 

A Parnassian 
Another Parnassian 

Flossie Duquet Ingenue 

Almon Merritt Oressa's Quondam Fiance 

WiLLETTS Duquet's Footman 

Maid to Oressa 



Act I — Living room in Holliday house. 
Act II — Study in Duquet's New York Apartments. 
Act III — Parlor in Oressa Holtiday's New York 
Apartments. 

Act IV — Same as Act I. 

Act I has four scenes. Act II has three scenes. Act 
III has six scenes. Act IV has four scenes. 



THE SUPREME TEST 



ACT I 

Living room in Holliday house. 

The room, dimly lighted, has faded Brussels carpet 
on the floor, old-fashioned furniture, with horsehair 
sofa, dilapidated chairs whose webbing is broken and 
insides protruding. In the center is a round table cov- 
ered with a worsted spread and littered with books 
and newspapers. A lamp, low burning, is placed in 
the middle of the table. 

Time — Seven o'clock, of October evening. 

Mrs. Holliday, a careworn woman of sixty, attired 
in an ill-fitting gown of rusty black, her shoulders 
covered with a shawl, is seated in a large rocking-chair 
with split cane back. 

Enter Holliday, a man of seventy. He is spare, tall 
and stooped, with an ascetic visage, white mustache 
and hair. 

Scene I 

Holliday — {In querulous tones.) It is a crime, 
the way you women waste light in this house! Here 
I find the gas up full head in the front hall. I sup- 
147 



148 THE SUPREME TEST 

pose it's some of Virginia's doings. Girls have no 
economy in them. They'd run me into bankruptcy 
if I'd let 'em. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^We try to be as saving as we 
can, and we use kerosene oil in the kitchen. 

Holliday — {With an impatient gesture.) Kero- 
sene oil in the kitchen! What's that when the meter 
has already registered eight hundred feet! At the 
rate we're going we shall consume this month over a 
thousand feet! Eight hundred feet, and this only the 
third week! 

Mrs» Holliday — Eight hundred feet ? What would 
that make the bill? 

Holliday — It would make it one dollar and ten 
cents, madam. 

Mrs. Holliday — What of that? Suppose we did 
burn eight hundred feet? 

Holliday — ^There is no sense in it. It's just a 
wilful extravagance. 

Mrs. Holliday — But, Benn, this is a dark month 
and we have to light up early. 

Holliday — It isn't near as dark as it will be in 
the next two months. If we begin by burning a thou- 
sand feet in October, what will we burn in November 
and December, I should like to know? Why should 
I pay for gas burning full head in that hall when it 
does nobody any good? 

Mrs. Holliday — {Beginning to rock.) I'd be 
decent if I lived in a community amongst civilized 
folks. I'd have a little pride for my family's sake 
if not for my own, and I'd show a ray of light in my 
house for the speech of people! 



ACT I 149 

HoLLiDAY — {Excitedly.) That's all you think of. 
It's your fetich. You are eternally bound down by 
what people will think. Damn it! what do I care 
what they think! I declare, Beulah, I'd have some 
independence ! 

Mrs. Holliday — If any one should start to come 
here, they'd go away when they saw it so dark, because 
they naturally would think nobody was home. 

Holliday — {Belligerently.) Then let 'em go 
away. I tell you, right here, I am not going to waste 
light in my house in order to squander my hard earn- 
ings on this swindling gas company. Why should I 
help enrich such a concern? 

Mrs. Holliday — {Rocking to and fro.) It isn't 
to enrich the gas company; it's for our own comfort, 
Benn. 

Holliday — Nonsense! What comfort are we get- 
ting out of that light running to waste in the front 
hall? 

Mrs. Holliday — But it isn't any better where we 
are sitting. 

Holliday — ^You aren't reading. There is light 
enough here to talk by. What more do you want 
than to see ourselves? Don't be unreasonable. 

Mrs. Holliday — It is so cheerless. 

Holliday — {Angrily.) You women are dissatis- 
fied because I w^on't expend my income on foolishness. 

Mrs. Holliday — If I were you, I wouldn't want 
Oressa to look back and always remember her home 
as a place of stinting economies, and how to the very 
last her father pinched her down to the barest neces- 
sities. 



I50 THE SUPREME TEST 

Hqlliday — As to that, Oressa has had a good home 
here with us and it remains to be seen if she finds any 
b'etter with Merritt. 

Mrs. Holliday — If it weren't for the sake of her 
•marrying, I would certainly put my foot down on her 
having that man. 

Holliday — Mrs. Earle's croaking! 

Mrs. Holliday — I do not think he's the right man 
for her. To begin with, he's too practical. The idea 
of a girl like Oressa, brimming over with sentiment, 
marrying a man who lays out sewers and builds coffer 
dams ! It's incongruous, to say the least. 

Holliday — It's a good thing for girls to marry their 
opposites. 

Mrs. Holliday — I think there ought to be some 
affinity, an5^way. 

Holliday — ^You can't have everything. 

Mrs. Holliday — She ought to marry a man who 
will enter into her tastes for refined things, who wiU 
encourage her. 

Holliday — ^You women ought to make men to 
order, so as to be suited in every respect. Have their 
noses a definite length, their eyes a certain color, their 
figures a stated height, and their tastes and ways of 
looking at everything to exactly correspond with yours. 
And if they differ an iota from that standard, throw 
'em out because they are not fitted for you! 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You can laugh. That's a wo- 
man's privilege to choose in order to suit herself. I 
ought, on general principles, to oppose this marriage. 

Holliday — Much good it would do you, when she 
has got her head set. 



ACT I 151 

Mrs. Holliday — She thinks she's in love with him 
because she has not had any others with whom to com- 
pare him. She hardly ever meets, let alone gets a 
chance to become acquainted with a man, and he just 
happens to be the one who is available. Her head is 
full of romance. She lives in an unreal world; she 
is in love with the idea of love and she is at that age 
when she wants an object on which to lavish her 
affection. 

Holliday — Then let her have the experience. Per- 
haps it won't turn out as badly as you apprehend. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Shaking her head.) Though 
generous, she is high-strung and wilful, and he is 
obstinate and domineering, and I sometimes fear his 
principles are not stable; and he never has been nice 
and attentive to you and me as a young man should 
be to the parents of the girl with whom he aims to 
be solid. I have warned her that if he couldn't make 
her dearest friend happy he wouldn't very likely prove 
a good husband to her. 

Holliday — That doesn't follow at all. Because a 
man can't get along with one woman who may be 
a spendthrift, a gad-about or a nag, is no sign he 
won't with another who is economical and stay-at- 
home. 

Mrs. Holliday — Louise lived a life of misery and 
died a disappointed, broken-hearted woman. 

Holliday — Mrs. Earle has prejudiced you with 
her yarns about her girl. 

Mrs. Holiday — Natural enough. Still I never 
liked him from the first, when he began coming around 
here with his smooth talk of how much she reminded 



152 THE SUPREME TEST 

him of his lost wife, how vividly she brought back the 
dear days of his courtship, Oressa being so much at 
Louise's and bridesmaid, and what a consolation it was 
to him to be with one who could sympathize with him. 
{Wags her head.) I know about what that sort of 
talk is worth and what its object is. Soon enough I 
saw how things were going, that he was making up 
to her and that she was carried away by the idea of 
a beau and I was in the dumps, as you well remember. 
I distrusted him from the beginning and I believe that 
under that outside he has a mean disposition. No 
mother could tell the things Mrs. Earle told me with 
tears in her eyes unless some truth were behind them. 
Louise was thwarted in everything she wanted to do. 

HoLLiDAY — Bah! We all know Louise had an 
ungovernable temper. 

Mrs. Holliday — So has Oressa a passionate temper. 

HoLLiDAY — ^Then it will be a good thing to have 
her impetuosity curbed a bit. 

Mrs. Holliday — {With spirit.) Do you mean 
me to understand, Mr. Holliday, that you want your 
daughter to be miserable? 

Holliday — Certainly not. But a little disciplining 
and keeping in check for girls now-a-days when they 
are become so headstrong and think they are running 
the world, isn't altogether a bad idea. And I am 
not much worried about Oressa's ability to hold her 
own. 

Mrs. Holliday — When a woman holds her own 
against a domineering man there is war to the knife. 
Of course, situated as she is, I couldn't deliberately 
set myself to breaking up the match, when it is likely 



ACT I 153 

to be the only opportunity the child will have. What 
chance has she here and what is there for her to do? 
What does the future hold for her save to go to seed 
as her poor sister has done? 

HoLLiDAY — ^Then let good enough alone. 

Mrs. Holliday — I often feel it was a mistake on 
our side that we did not make a supreme effort to 
send the girls to college where they might have met 
nice young men. That's where Louise Earle became 
acquainted with Merritt. 

Holliday — It was the tightest kind of a squeeze 
for me to send my boys to college. 

Mrs. HoLLroAY — ^We could have borrowed the 
money. 

Holliday — It was against my principles. I never 
felt the necessity for my girls to chase the country over 
after fellows. I have always been of the belief that 
a woman should be sought and that an attractive girl 
can get a husband if she stays home. 

Mrs. Holliday — So she might, if desirable men 
folks are about where she can get access to them. But 
the right kind of husbands are scarce these days. You 
know that, Benn, well enough. 

Holliday — You didn't have to go to college to 
get me. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Significantly.) Perhaps it 
might have been well for myself and the girls if I 
had gone. 

Holiday — ( Sarcastically . ) Perhaps, 

Mrs. Holliday — I doubtless would have made a 
different choice. 

Holliday — Very doubtless. 



154 THE SUPREME TEST 

Mrs. Holliday — It's too late now, after forty years, 
to talk of what might have been. Now I have told 
you of my apprehensions regarding this marriage. Mer- 
ritt has been a long time urging Oressa to set the day. 
It has been a year since Louise died and the conven- 
tions have been sufficiently observed. Oressa, too, has 
got tired of waiting. 

Holliday — ^Well, let 'em get married. What's 
hindering them ? 

Mrs,. Holliday — A trousseau. 

Holliday — ^What ! 

Mrs. Holliday — {Calmly.) Yes, a trousseau. 
She has decided on early December and she has got to 
have some decent clothes. Of course, she will not go 
into any save the plainest wardrobe and she will be 
married in a very simple unpretentious way, but it is 
absolutely necessary she have a w^edding gown, a trav- 
eling suit, a new coat and hat and a theater dress. 
And there will have to be money provided for that. 

Holliday — How much? 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You will have to give us two 
hundred dollars at least. 

Holliday — Phew ! Come, now, you needn't tell me 
it's necessary a girl squander all that good money 
on wedding finery. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Persuasively.) That is a very 
small amount to spend these days on an outfit. 

Holliday — Small amount! Why, when we were 
married you only had one dress, the dress you had on 
when you stood up and which you still wore afterward 
when we took our wedding trip by carriage of thirty 
miles! 



ACT I 155 

Mrs. HoLLroAY — ^That was so long ago and every- 
thing was so different. You could only afford a gold 
engagement ring costing five dollars or less! Your 
daughter is marrying a professional man in prosperous 
circumstances and you want her to do credit to her 
position in life. You don't want her to go to her 
husband without a decent wardrobe and it is a time in 
which we can't be niggardly. 

HoLLiDAY — I can't let you have it. It is impossible. 

Mrs. Holliday — Why do you say that when I 
know that you made the sale only last month of that 
twenty acres up in Freetown you took so long ago 
on a mortgage? 

Holliday — So I did, but I had to let Edmond have 
the money to tide him over from that business specula- 
tion that turned out so disastrously. 

Mrs. Holliday — Edmond should get out of that 
without distressing us. Here you derive a very tiny 
income from your securities and he is earning over 
three thousand a year! It's enough, surely, for any 
man who uses common thrift, to take care of himself 
and family on. It is preposterous he should apply 
to you when he meets with reverses. He is reckless 
and you know it. 

Holliday — I do; but I am sure just as soon as he 
can he will pay me back my loan. Meanwhile, I 
couldn't let him suffer for the need of a few hundred. 

Mrs. Holliday — Haven't you any other available 
resources ? 

Holliday — Not at present. I had to meet my 
taxes, my insurance dues and outstanding bills, and it 
left only enough by closest economy to run through the 



156 THE SUPREME TEST 

winter without drawing on my reserve capital. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^Then I shall be obliged to sell 
my railroad bond. The child has just got to have 
some clothes. It isn't necessary you tell her that the 
money doesn't come from you. 

Holliday — Later I will try and pay you back. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Tossing her head.) I know 
about the paying back ! 

Holliday — ^You know that since Harvey's savings 
have given out, it has crowded me pretty close to send 
him checks every month. 

Mrs. Holliday — He shouldn't have attempted tak- 
ing a degree abroad without sufficient funds to carry 
him through. 

Holliday — I never saw such a contradictory Wo- 
man! Here it was yourself who urged his taking a 
second degree as absolutely necessary if he ever hoped 
to get into university work, and now you are finding 
fault because I am trying to help him a little! 

Mrs. Holliday — I supposed, of course, he had saved 
enough after teaching five years on a good salary of 
twelve hundred a year to finance this undertaking with- 
out falling back on you. 

Holliday — {With warmth.) I am only too glad 
to be of service to him, as any man would be who feels 
a fatherly interest in his son. Harvey is the most 
likely member of our family, who will do it the great- 
est credit. Do you for an instant suppose, now that 
he is almost ready to take his degree, I am going to 
let him lose out for the sake of a few paltry dollars? 
No, ma'am! I am going to stand by to the last 
minute 1 



ACT I 157 

Mrs. Holliday — Sh! Sh! Benn! Here come the 
girls. 

Enter, arm in arm, Virginia Holliday, a spinister of 
thirty-seven, and Oressa Holliday, a maid of twenty- 
five. Oressa's hair is hanging in a big braid down her 
back. Both girls are slender and graceful. 

Oressa — {Lightly.) We've got the dishes done, 
mommy. 

Virginia — {Stopping short.) Ugh! How cold 
it is here! 

Holliday — There you go again! I don't believe 
there ever were such chronic fault-finders as my wo- 
men folks. Everything I do, I get kicked. It is im- 
possible to please you. Some day, when you don't 
have me here to abuse, you'll look back and miss me! 

Virginia — Ooh — ooh ! 

Holliday — ^You exaggerate, make a great ado 
about nothing, let your imagination run away with 
you. It may be a trifle chilly, but it is not cold! 

Virginia — {Protestingly.) It is, it is cruelly cold, 
pa. And it is dangerous for mamma, since having 
that awful attack of grip last winter, to sit in a room 
without heat. {To Mrs. Holliday.) You better go 
in the kitchen, ma, where there is a fire. 

Holliday — ^Then off to the kitchen, all of you, as 
fast as you can foot it ! I can stand a little drop in tem- 
perature and am the better for it. Over-heated rooms 
are debilitating to mind as well as body, a menace to 
health. I am not going to saddle myself with the care 
of that furnace before the first of November. 

Virginia — As to that, you know I stand willing 
to help you. 



158 THE SUPREME TEST 

HoLLiDAY — Oh, yes! {Wags his head.) Of course 
you stand willing to empty my coal bin before there 
is the slightest necessity to begin on it. It has never 
been my custom 'to start fires before the first of No- 
vember, and I am not going to break the rule. Come, 
you effeminate, soft-fibered people of this puling gen- 
eration, who haven't stamina enough to bear a little 
discomfort in mild October weather, how do you think 
you could have endured an orthodox New York State 
winter fifty, sixty years ago, on a farm, with only 
two little wood stoves to heat the whole house? 

Virginia — Ugh ! 

HoLLiDAY — ^And folks in those days went to bed 
in a room that even in extremest mid-winter never 
received the least heat and considered it no hardship, 
either. In fact, they thought nothing of it, even 
when sometimes in the morning they found a little 
blanket of snow spread over them that in a heavy 
wind had sifted through the crevices of the walls and 
roof. 

Oressa — Oh, for goodness' sake, pa. 

HoLLiDAY — ^Yes, so. And that was the sort of life, — 
simple, hardy, abstemious, — that gave men backbone 
and constitution and made the vigor and solidity of 
this country. Why, a dollar was a dollar in those 
times, and men worked to earn it and valued it as a 
precious possession when they obtained it! Many a 
day when I was a boy have I toiled with bent back 
and sweating brow from sun-up to sunset, picking 
stones in the field for twenty-five cents, and proud 
was I of my labor! Such things as an eight-hour day, 
unions, strikes, labor troubles and men disgruntled 



ACT I 159 

with their jobs and stirring up dissensions, weren't 
within my experience. 

When I was in my teens and taught in the country, 
I walked four and six miles through the mud of 
wet weather, plowed through the snow-drifts of win- 
ter, to my school. Later, when I was so fortunate as 
to teach in the village academy, I eked out my tiny 
salary by working nights and mornings in the grocery 
store. And when first I moved here I was glad to 
support my family at book-keeping on six hundred a 
year. I know how I have come by my savings. I 
gained my way by my own efforts, accomplished my 
success unaided. I was without trade, profession, 
higher education; against that lack, I pitted my energy 
and determined to win out as best I could. Those 
were primitive times that made for resolution and 
character. 

Oressa — But since then conditions have changed 
from simple to complex, and moderns have developed 
a thousand needs to the one of the old-fashioned men 
and women who were perfectly content with the 
elementals of life. 

HoLLiDAY — I don't believe people are a whit more 
contented or happy for all the creature comforts and 
luxuries, and this is manifest — the mode of life pre- 
vailing now is not bringing out any very extraordinary 
personalities. 

Virginia — ^Your philosophy, pa, is of the Spartan 
order, and we, by inclination, at any rate, are of the 
Epicurean school. 

HoLLiDAY — ^This Epicurean philosophy that devotes 
men's powers to the service of sensual indulgence has 



i6o THE SUPREME TEST 

bred a race of pygmies. 

Oressa — You are a strong adherent of Henry David 
Thoreau and you think we moderns are deteriorating, 
as he thought were the people of his day when from 
the wilderness he raised his voice against sensual tenden- 
cies. {Starts, as the clang of the front door bell is 
heard.) Is that the bell? 

Mrs. Holliday — ^Yes, and I suppose the hall is 
dark as a pocket. 

Virginia — I'll go. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^Turn up the gas before you open 
the door. 

Exit Virginia. 

Oressa — ^Anyway, we can have a little more light 
here. {Turns up the lamp.) There, that's more 
cheerful. {Runs to her mother and straightens out 
the white lace collar at her throat. Smooths her hair.) 
Now we are fit as fiddles. {Folds her arms and strikes 
an attitude.) I suppose it's that botheration of a 
Madam Jaundice come to whine out her troubles in 
our long-suffering ears. Oh, the old bore! 

Mrs. Holliday — Perhaps it's Mr. Merritt come 
to see you. 

Oressa — He would have telegraphed, for it isn't his 
custom to come unawares. That man does everything 
with method and in order. It would be embarrassing 
for us if his advent should chance to be unheralded. 
He'd surely think he got a freeze-out, eh, pa? 

Holliday — ^You could take him to the kitchen. 

Oressa — Where it is general for wenches to re- 
ceive their followers. 

Reenter VirginiCj followed by a tall, distinguished 



ACT I i6i 



appearing young man bearing his hat and a small parcel 
in one hand. As he walks there is a noticeable peculi- 
arity of his headj which is bent slightly forward. 



Scene II 

Stranger — {Advancing.) Miss Oressa Holliday? 

Oressa — {Inclining her head.) Yes. 

Stranger — I am Armand Duquet. {Lays down 
his hat and parcel and takes from his breast pocket 
a case, from which he extracts a card. Hands her the 
card. ) 

Oressa — {Putting out her hand.) This is a great 
and unexpected pleasure, Mr. Duquet. I am deeply 
honored by your coming here. {Shows confusion.) 
I feel very much gratified at your coming here. It 
is a great surprise, I assure you. I expect you think 
me very presumptuous to take the liberty I did in 
addressing you, and now I seriously fear I have im- 
posed upon you. I certainly do, you know. 

Duquet — {Lightly and speaking with a marked 
Southern accent.) Don't worry about that a moment. 
I am on my way West from New York to transact 
a little business in Chicago and it is the easiest thing 
in the world for me to stop o£E here. Right on my 
road. 

Oressa — It is nice of you to say that, and it is 
nicer for you to come. Mr, Duquet, allow me to pre- 
sent you to my family, — my father, mother and sister. 

Duquet — {With a brilliant smile.) I am sure 



i62 THE SUPREME TEST 

I am happy to meet them. {Bows low. Shakes hands 
cordially with each one in turn.) 

Oressa — Mr. Duquet's is a name of which you 
have all heard. It is that of one of our most dis- 
tinguished American playwrights. 

DuQUET — {Bowing low.) You are superlative in 
your estimate of my rank. 

HoLLiDAY — ^The name sounds foreign. 

DuQUET — I am of French descent, suh. I was born 
and partially reared in the South, where my family, 
fox many generations, have lived. 

Oressa — If you can't be of the native-born French, 
who carry the palm for exquisite urbanity, the next 
best thing is to have emanated from the South, famed 
the world over as the home of chivalry, and we might 
also add, where are lodged the gentility and high 
breeding of this country. 

{The ladies seat themselves j and Duquet takes his 
place on the hair-cloth sofa.) 

Duquet — {Smiling.) You pay gracious homage 
to the South. 

Oressa — I only say what I honestly think. 

HoLLiDAY — I suppose you have been abroad? 

Duquet — ^Yes, I have spent some years in study in 
Paris and Berlin. My grandfather was Ambassador 
to the Imperial German Court. 

HoLLiDAY — {Leaning forward.) Berlin, you say? 
I have a son studying for a doctor's degree in Berlin. 

Duquet — Indeed, suh ! 

HoLLiDAY — ^Yes. My son received his Bachelor's 
training in this country, but he soon found out, he says, 
an American degree in the academic world didn't show 



ACT I 163 

up very well alongside a foreign one. You know in 
these days, not anything is counted in the educational 
line as equal to what the Germans can put up. My 
son's admiration for that people is unbounded. They're 
scientific in their system, he says. Efficiency in every 
line, is their watchword, — and he is intending to devote 
himself to university work. His ambition is to become 
a professor and teach these methods to our young 
Philistines. And a man these days don't stand much 
chance at professoring unless he holds a German doc- 
torate. The universities want the top-trained men. 

DuQUET — Ah ! 

Oressa — Harvey's business is to inculcate ideas 
whilst Mr. Duquet's is to originate them. Perhaps 
he is not so deeply impressed with the German educa- 
tional predominance as we are. 

DuQUET — ^Thorough equipment is indispensable to 
the scholar and it is a jewel in the crown of genius. 

{Fumbles in his breast pocket and produces a 
leather-mono gramed case and extracts from the case 
several cigars with gilt bands around them. With 
a low bow proffers the cigars to Holliday.) 

HoLLiDAY — Oh, thank you, thank you! But I 
fear I am robbing you. 

DuQUET — (Graciously.) I assure you, no. 

Mrs. Holliday — I thought you'd given up smoking, 
Mr. Holliday. 

Holliday — ^Well, I had, as an unnecessary and ex- 
pensive practise, but when an acquaintance, for good- 
fellowship's sake, offers me Havanas, I am not churlish 
enough to refuse them. 

Oressa — (Naively.) I expected you to be middle- 



i64 THE SUPREME TEST 

aged and gray. I certainly did. 

DuQUET — {With a brilliant smile.) And are you 
disappointed that I prove otherwise? 

Oressa — Disappointed? Er — I am amazed. 

DuQUET — ^Why, is youth, then, so incompatible 
with achievement? 

Oressa — Why, no, when one recalls Keats, Shelley 
and Byron! But if I had supposed you not to be 
mature and sedate, I would not have dared apply to 
you, 

DuQUET — "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's 
hue." Perhaps I shall prove to possess great sobriety. 
, Oressa — {Laughing.) Of judgment and stead- 
fastness of purpose. {Shaking her head.) Ah, it never 
entered my head. It is incredible in so short a time 
you could accomplish so much! 

DuQUET — ^You simply have overestimated my 
achievements. 

Oressa — Four dramas and a name already known 
the world over! Oh, no, no! {To the others.) You 
know I was bold enough to write to Mr. Duquet. 

{Holliday is fingering the cigars and taking deep 
whiffs of their fragrance.) 

Mrs. Holliday — ^Write him! 

Oressa — ^Yes, to help me. I thought I might get 
some ideas from him that would prove of great value 
and that if I could enlist the interest of a man of 
authority and prestige in the dramatic world it would 
spur me on to a supreme effort. {To Duquet.) You 
have read my play? 

Duquet — ^Yes. 

Oressa — ^And what do you think of iti 



ACT I 165 

DuQUET — Do you really wish me to tell you? 

Oressa — Certainly I do ! I want your unvarnished 
opinion. 

DuQUET — A candid opinion is not always so pleas- 
ant to the recipient as one disguised by polite circumlo- 
cutions, 

Oressa — I am an egoist by nature, but I do not 
shrink from the truth when it is going to be salutary 
for me. I must know, sooner the better, my faults 
and deficiencies in order to correct them. So do not 
hesitate to tell me. 

DuQUET — It is your maiden effort? 

Oressa — I will have to confess there are several 
companions to it snugly reposing on a shelf in my 
closet. I have been impelled from the time I first 
remember with the desire to give shape to the fancies 
that were ever crowding in my brain, and as soon as 
I could grope my way to a sufficient use of the lan- 
guage as a medium of expression, I began to materialize 
my ideas into words. My continual joy was in creating 
situations; crude and feeble as were my efforts I was 
happy in giving novel and fresh forms to my imagina- 
tion. I knew perfectly well, of course, that from a 
standpoint of utility these attempts were ineffective, 
but my pleasure was in the exercise. I cannot tell you 
how my being, isolated and apart, has been filled to 
overbrimming, like an effervescent glass of champagne, 
with the sparkling interests of these beautiful dreams 
and the perpetual surprise and delight of the fascina- 
ting mysteries surrounding me! I was always busy 
weaving my romances, and whatever might be the 
circumstances of my external life the inner one I led 



i66 THE SUPREME TEST 

was of glory and rapture. As I grew older, I became 
faintly conscious of the stirrings of innate power which 
grew stronger and stronger with the years, and grad- 
ually there dawned upon me a sense of personal re- 
sponsibility. Then with the realization that I was born 
with a special part to play, that I was intrusted with 
a gift to be used for the service of mankind, I had 
before me an aim and a definite purpose. That aim 
and that purpose, ever growing more insistent, have 
become the guiding motives of my existence. My 
dearest wish is to succeed, because I am obsessed with 
the knowledge that to triumphantly work out the 
forces that control me is to fulfil the destiny for which 
I was ordained. And you can help me, who am still 
groping in the shadows and striving after the distant 
, object, because you have surmounted your obstacles 
and reached the goal. 

DuQUET — ^To help you to develop your potentialities 
and to know yourself, I accord both a privilege and a 
pleasure. 

In reading your manuscript I was impressed with 
the conviction that it was written by one imbued with 
exalted ideals, animated by the impassioned fervor, 
the divine inspiration of youth, written by one untried 
and as yet spared the disappointment of losing her 
illusions, one who had lived long in the realms of 
glowing fancy, who had thought much, had roamed the 
wide fields of literature, but who, owing to the restric- 
tions of a narrow and secluded environment, had 
missed almost entirely the realities of the world. 

Observation, to the writer, is what information is 
to the student. Knowledge and discipline are the tools 



ACT I 167 

with which the scholar works ; experience is the servant 
of genius. It is still for you to learn of that broader 
life that comes from contact with men and affairs. 

Oressa — {Eagerly.) And the opportunity to learn 
will soon be granted me. I am coming out of the 
chrysalis right quick. In a very short time I shall 
be transported to city life, where I shall meet many 
people, have diversion, excitement and pleasure galore. 

DuQUET — Very good. So far, your ideas have been 
evolved almost wholly from within. They are vigor- 
ous, unique, but fanciful; in order to enlarge, extend 
them, give them practicability, there must be joined 
to them ideas from without. 

Oressa — {With animation.) Oh, I'll get plenty of 
that from people! I'll be a sponge absorbing every- 
thing. Never fear! Then I shall discover for my- 
self what this experience is worth and if the joys of 
the senses can be adequately measured with those of 
the contemplative mind. 

DuQUET — ^A young girl shouldn't be overly con- 
cerned about contemplation. 

Oressa — Oh, I was born to be concerned about con- 
templation ! There wasn't anything else for me to do. 

DuQUET — Now, after you have made acquaintance 
with many of these sensual pleasures, the more frivolous 
the better, in your case, have tried out some of the 
joys and sorrows of life, perhaps even experienced the 
grand passion, I want you to try your hand again at 
a play. And when it is written, bring it to me. 

Oressa — {Her face changing.) You don't think 
the play I sent is good enough to be produced? 

DuQUET — There is missing from it the unity essen- 



i68 THE SUPREME TEST 

tial to the success of an acting play. I can work it 
over if you wish. 

Oressa — ^That wouldn't be fair, for it would no 
longer be my play. 

DuQUET — You are superhonest; but you are right. 
You must work out your own destiny independently. 
The time is not yet mature for your debut on the stage 
of affairs. Here is your manuscript. {Extends to her 
the parcel.) You will find I have made a good many 
notes on the margin and offered some suggestions from 
a technical point of view. I warn you I am merciless 
with my blue pencil. 

Oressa — {In a tremulous voice j receiving the manu- 
script.) I thank you very much. I am deeply grate- 
ful for the interest you have taken in me. 

Duquet — Don't mention it. I assure you I am 
only too glad to be of the least service to you. 

Oressa — I appreciate the pains you have taken to 
do that service for a stranger, {Covers her face and 
bursts into tears.) 

Virginia — {Running forward and flinging her arms 
around Oressa.) Never mind, Essie! Never mind, 
kid! 

Duquet — {With embarrassment.) Oh, I entreat 
you, don't cry. 

Oressa — {In a broken voice.) I am disappointed. 
I cant help it! {Weeps bitterly.) 

Duquet — Oh, come, come ! I beg of you, don't cry! 

Oressa — To long reflect upon a thing, to bestow 
upon it loving care and toil, — ^with fondest pride and 
eager anticipation to watch it unfolding day by day 
under your hand to ever fairer proportions, as a mother 



ACT I 169 

watches her babe, — to see it reach its consummation, 
and then to find it worthless; oh, it is hard! 

DuQUET — {Earnestly.) But it isn't worthless. It 
is full of splendid promise! In it is the germ of a 
noble idea! 

Oressa — ^You say that to soften the severity of your 
judgment! {With a despairing gesture.) I hate it! 
{Flings the parcel to the floor.) You are only a little 
older than I — why should you succeed and I fail? It 
is the eternal injustice of nature that you should have 
wrought better than I because j^ou are a man! 

Mrs. Holliday — {Warningly.) Oressa! 

Oressa — {Passionately.) It is true, it is true! 
Whatever women attempt to perform, men so easily 
surpass them. Why should we try? What's the use? 

{Duquet stoops, picks up the manuscript and lays 
it on the table.) 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You ought to be ashamed to show 
yourself so ungrateful. 

Duquet — I am very, very sorry to have caused you 
this distress when my only thought was to help, not to 
discourage you. 

Oressa — I am ashamed, and I ask your pardon for 
being so rude. {Smiles through her tears and holds 
out her hand.) Now are you going to forgive me? 
What must you think of me? 

Duquet — Ah, but I understand. {Takes her 
hand.) If at any time in the coming future you 
should be in trouble or meet with misfortune, I 
want you to call upon me. Will you promise to 
do so? 

Oressa — ^Why are you so kind to one who has 



I70 THE SUPREME TEST 

not the slightest claim upon your consideration? 

DuQUET — {Looking deep in her eyes.) Not the 
slightest, rather a claim the most imperative, for in 
you the eternal spirit of Art makes its appeal to me. 
When you are in need of me, come or send for me. Do 
not forget. Until then, adieu. 

Exit, followed by Virginia. 

Mrs. Holliday — {To Oressa.) Why do you show 
yourself out so? First go and write to the man and 
ask him as a favor to look over and judge your work, 
and then because his opinion doesn't please you, abuse 
him. How are you going to get on in the world if 
you don't cultivate a little policy? 

Oressa — {Disdainfully.) Policy is the weapon of 
mediocre souls without sovereign abilities to recom- 
mend them, who truckle their way by soft insinuations 
and subtleties to the ends they desire; a soul conscious 
of its merits moves direct on its independent course 
and speaks without fear, 

Holliday — ^You should try and curb your impetu- 
osity. Self-control, even for a conceited miss like 
yourself, is the first thing to learn. That is a most 
free-handed young man and you should have tried 
to make a friend of him when he apparently was kindly 
disposed toward you. 

{Oressa paces the floor in deep thought.) 
Reenter Virginia. 

Scene HI 

Oressa — {Eagerly.) He has gone? 
Virginia — ^Yes. A breath from the great outside 
world wafted in our humdrum retreat! I have read 



ACT I 171 

of such polished men but I never met one before! It 
is like the hero stepping out of a story book into really 
and truly life. I am carried away with him. He's 
just a charming young man! 

HoLLiDAY — {Aside to Mrs. Holliday.) A generous 
young man who elects a choice brand of Havanas, 

Oressa — Charming? Rather a fateful man, a mys- 
terious irresistible force that I am conscious is going 
to control the events of my coming life. Have I 
made a mistake by my voluntary act in giving him 
opportunity to shape my destiny? Will his entrance, 
whose way was opened by me, prove my fortune or 
misery? 

Virginia — Why, how strangely you talk! 
Oressa — {Her hand to her brow.) Not more 
strangely than I feel. I feel that his advent to-night 
is the precursor of a new epoch for me and that he 
is inextricably mixed with all that is subsequently to 
happen. {With a bewildered expression she gazes 
before her.) I see in the distance shadows where are 
dimly outlined shifting kaleidoscopic scenes amidst 
which vague forms float. Now there is a light and I 
can distinguish him and other young men moving as in 
a panorama. The light increases, becomes brilliant, 
and the scene resolves itself into a stage. In front of 
the stage is a pit densely filled from orchestra to 
dress circle with upturned faces, — faces, a sea of faces 
everywhere, from balcony to gallery. ... It fades 
and there dawns a new scene in which I discern hinij 
another man, a stranger, and, yes, Merritt — and there 
is a woman, too, a beautifully-gowned woman. Why, 
it is myself! Oh! {Emits a cry and covers her eyes. 



172 THE SUPREME TEST 

shuddering convulsively.) 

Virginia — {Tenderly.) Your imagination is run- 
ning away with you, dear. You are overwrought from 
your disappointment. 

Oressa — {Still shuddering.) I think I am over- 
wrought. {Changes suddenly to cheerful mood.) And 
yet I am not so disappointed after all, for I am con- 
scious of a power indwelling here so buoyant and elastic 
as to triumphantly defy defeat and surmount any and 
all difficulties in my path. {With elation.) I believe 
everything is going to prove bright for me and that I 
shall reach out and take all the blessings this world 
holds for mortals. My star says so. My whole life 
will be different, and it will actually seem like being 
born again to be so happy and with such a multitude 
of things to think about. A lovely home, a doting hus- 
band who has promised to give me whatever I ask for — 
he gets such a big salary — and I shall ask for pretty 
dresses the first thing! {Childishly.) Just picture to 
yourself little me trailing over Royal Wiltons in silken 
gowns that swish and rustle as I go ! ( Goes dancing 
about the room. StopSj flings her arms around Vir- 
ginia.) Remember, old girl, you are going to share 
my good fortune and prosperity with me. You are 
going to be dolled up and taken about to see and enjoy 
some life. And we shall get you a husband ! 

Virginia — {Shaking her head and laughing.) Oh, 
a husband! I'm past that! 

Oressa — {With a kiss and hug.) A woman is 
never past having a husband ! Most people think that's 
what she's created for. And you will make such a 
model wife, dutifully sewing on his buttons and mend- 



ACT I 173 

ing his socks and tucking in the kids every night. . . . 
Let's see what this high and mighty man has done to 
my unoffending old manuscript. {Goes to the table. 
Eyes fall on a letter. Picks it up.) Why, this letter 
is mine, from Almon. What is it doing here? 



Scene III 

Mrs. Holliday — I put it there when I took it 
from the mail carrier this afternoon, and then it slipped 
my mind. 

Oressa — {Tearing open the envelope.) I haven't 
heard from him in over a week. Short and sweet! 
That means he is soon coming to see us. {Face 
changes as she reads.) It cannot be! {Looks about 
in a dazed way. Staggers to a chair and falls into it.) 

Mrs. Holliday — {In alarm.) Is he sick or dead? 
What's the matter? 

Oressa — {In a dazed voice.) Matter? He's a 
scoundrel and I've been tricked! 

( Virginia catches up the letter and reads. ) 

For some time past the conviction has been coming 
over me that we are not fitted to each other. Both 
our temperaments and tastes are so different that a 
union for life I fear would be a very serious mistake. 
A woman whose heart is set on literary attainment is 
no more likely to make an average man happy than the 
man of genius is likely to prove a good mate for the 
ordinary woman. I have arrived at the conclusion 
that I could not reach up to your standard, as also that 



174 THE SUPREME TEST 

the strain of trying to keep pace would become too 
fatiguing. 

Some weeks back, on a business trip, I met a young 
lady who, though not ambitious and gifted, as you are, 
yet seems to possess the homely qualities that would 
make an every-day man a good wife. The attraction 
she exerted over me has increased so steadily that, 
finding I could no longer be happy apart from her, I 
married her yesterday. 

I make no excuses for my conduct toward you beyond 
the explanations I have offered above. Whilst I realize 
that I have done you a grave wrong, still I feel that 
you are not left without compensations, indeed that 
you are destined to mate with a more exceptional man 
than am I, and so in the end you will concur with me 
that this is not the worst thing that could happen. 
Anyway, the thing has happened, and I can't see how 
it can be changed now. 

I remain very sincerely, 

Almon. 

Mrs. Holiday — {Bursting forth.) I always dis- 
trusted that man! There were about him silent, 
stealthy ways unlike those of other young men who are 
open and straightforward. 

. Oressa — {Moaning.) It cannot be, it cannot be! 
It is incredible he would sacrifice me to som.e other 
girl ! 

HoLLiDAY — {Warmly.) He is a mean, contempti- 
ble sneak to treat you such a trick, and you are well 
rid of him ! 

Oressa — I had every confidence in him, pa. 



ACT I 175 

I thought him upright and square. I cannot conceive 
of his putting so base an imposition upon me. 

Mrs. Holliday — I cannot conceive of his daring 
to put such an affront on our family! 

Holliday — It is an insult to your brothers and 
should be resented by them ! 

Oressa — {Moaning.) I believed he thought so 
much of me. He acted so fond. Only the last time 
he was here he held me in his arms ... he kissed me 
again and again, he lingered over me as though he 
could not bring himself to part with me. Oh, it does 
not seem possible he could deceive me so! 

Holliday — {Excitedly.) I'd rather see you laid 
in your coffin than married to such a man! I can't 
think of a worse fate for a girl than to be tied for life 
to a base, unprincipled hound! You can count your- 
self as lucky that he has revealed himself in his true 
colors and that you have found him out in time! 

Oressa — {Rocking to and fro.) In time? Oh, 
that I had found him out before I ever learned to love 
him! Oh, that I had never known him! 

Virginia — {Soothingly.) It will come right, dear. 
You are young and your opportunities are still open 
before you. You will meet the right one some time 
and then you will see this is for the best. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You have had the narrowest kind 
of escape! Mrs. Earle didn't tell me of the treatment 
he gave her poor Louise unless there was something 
in it! 

Holliday — {Turning on his wife.) If you were 
warned, Oressa should have had sense enough to let 
him alone! 



176 THE SUPREME TEST 

Mrs. Holliday — ^That's just like you, Mr. Holli- 
day, to shift the blame on me! And you are just as 
deserving of blame as I, for you were not left unawares 
of what Mrs. Earle informed me and you were will- 
ing the marriage should go on ! 

Virginia — Oh, hush! Oressa didn't believe it, he 
made himself so amiable and soft-spoken as he laid 
siege to her heart! The poor child wanted love and 
she had no chances for choosing admirers as other 
girls have. 

Holliday — ^Then she should have gone out and 
mixed with others instead of cooping herself up here 
dreaming her life away, her head in the clouds! 

Virginia — She was reduced to depending upon her 
own resources for entertainment. 

Holliday — Nonsense! You are all the time trying 
to make the girl dissatisfied with her lot, and trying 
to make her think she's a martyr, to say nothing of your 
attempt to poison her young mind against her father. 
I should think you'd be ashamed. 

Virginia — Don't be unreasonable, pa. How in the 
name of common sense could a girl with the pride 
Oressa has go around with young people of her own 
class when she hadn't decent clothes to wear, or a house 
in any condition in which to receive company? She 
kept her self-respect and stayed at home as did her 
sister before her. 

Holliday — (Testily.) There you go again. Load 
it all on me. It's just what I expected! Whatever 
goes awry with any of you, sooner or later it is laid at 
my door. I don't believe another man in the United 
States is cursed with worse henpecking women. 



ACT I 177 

Virginia — You haven't done right by us. You de- 
prived us of the education that w^ould have prepared 
us to earn our livelihood elsewhere and gained us 
independence. 

HoLLiDAY — ^You had education more than enough 
to unsettle you just as have all the dissatisfied women 
of these days who have abandoned their natural duties 
and are running loose craving the excitement of pub- 
licity, agitating in meetings their rights, and trying 
to take over men's work in the world. It isn't the 
part of girls to earn livelihoods. It is their business 
to stay home, to marry and settle down and rear 
children. 

Virginia — {Spiritedly.) Then you should have 
seen to it that we had a fair deal at home, that we had 
clothes fit to make an appearance in and a little money 
to spend on entertaining and going about. 

HoLLiDAY — I hadn't the money to waste on frip- 
peries. 

Virginia — I say you haven't been fair. 

HoLLiDAY — These are fine becoming reproaches from 
one's child! That daughters should turn on their 
father is the direct outcome of an age of uneasy idle 
women, disgruntled with their lot in life, not knowing 
what they want or what is good for them, and eternally 
prating about their injustices. 

Virginia — Women are not responsible for their 
state of unrest and discontent. Rather say the upward 
trend of civilization that has caught and carried hu- 
manity, men and women alike, onward in its swirl, 
is responsible, 

HoLLiDAY — Puh ! All that ails women in these days 



178 THE SUPREME TEST 

is that men have spoiled them and not left them 
enough to do, and neither will they do anything that 
doesn't bring them to outside notice. 

Oressa — {Staggering to her feet.) I must go away 
now for a change. 

HoLLiDAY — Go away — ^where ? 

Oressa — {Her hand to her brow.) I don't know. 

HoLLiDAY — ^You better know that when you are well 
off you will stay in the home that has sheltered you 
so long. 

Oressa — I am tired of the everlasting monotony 
of this shelter. All at once it is suffocating me; 
I can endure it no longer. 

HoLLiDAY — What do you think you want? 

Oressa — My right to live, my chance to do my 
part and to take my knocks in the open, to know the 
exhilarating joy of battling for my place, the exultant 
satisfaction of wresting my success. I am twenty-five 
years old, and I feel I have been on this planet a hun- 
dred, and yet I have to learn what this world is like 
and what it contains for me, and I am curious to find 
out if I am able to conquer it. 

HoLLiDAY — Deluded, headstrong girl! What do 
you expect you are going to do, who have never been 
half a day's journey from here? 

Oressa — Make my way. 

HoLLiDAY — But you do not know how to make it. 
You are not prepared to do anything. 

Oressa — {Proudly.) I have my resources. 

HoLLiDAY — ^Which will prove not worth two cents 
to you. You'll make a perfect failure if you under- 
take this writing business expecting to live by it. Why, 



ACT I 179 

many a man well trained and experienced has gone 
down under it, yes, and starved, too, if he didn't have 
other means of gaining a livelihood to fall back on ! 

Oressa — How does any one know that until 1 
have had opportunity to make the trial? 

HoLLiDAY — (Contemptuously.) Because it isn't in 
j^ou. 

Oressa — How do you know that? 

HoLLiDAY — Know it! Am I not your father and 
can a stream get above its source ? {Mockingly.) You 
are infatuated with your abilities. I tell you what, 
you will be only too glad after a few weeks of your 
knocks in the open to come crawling back to the despised 
shelter of your father's house. 

Oressa — I won't crawl back. I am not of the 
sort who goes on her knees, you know that, pa. 

HoLLiDAY — {Bitterly.) You will be glad to go 
on your knees in order to get yourself taken care of 
after you have been buffeted hither and thither, starved 
and insulted! 

Oressa — I am not afraid of being downed. I defy 
the world to down any one whose spirit is strong enough 
to resist it. If I make good, I will come back; other- 
wise, I stay away. Is that an independent proposition ? 

HoLLiDAY — Humph ! 

Mrs. Holliday — Don't make foolish threats, child. 

Oressa — But I am not making threats, mommy, I 
am just offering a proposition to pa. {Begins to laugh 
immoderately.) Isn't it funny a free woman should 
be under the necessity of making any explanation con- 
cerning her liberty of action, or entering into a pact 
before she dares take a decisive step! {Continues 



i8o THE SUPREME TEST 

laughing. To Virginia, who has started to follow her.) 
Don't follow me, dear. I know you feel all kindness 
to me, but I cannot bear to have any one talk to me 
now. I shall feel differently after I have been alone a 
little while. 

Exit Oressa. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Starting to her feet.) The girl 
is crazed with grief. ' It is no time for you to quarrel 
with her. You ought to know better than to bandy 
words with her at such a crisis. 

Holliday — Let her alone to come to herself. She 
has shown herself out to her father as an insolent, 
thankless girl. 

Virginia — ^The rankling injustice of years has In 
the moment of her stress found utterance. 

Holliday — ^What are you talking about? 

Virginia — If your own conscience fails to tell you, 
then I will explain what I mean. She resents the 
insignificance to which you consigned her because she 
was a girl, the grudging benefits you accorded her 
reduced to the barest necessities, whilst she could not 
avoid seeing that what was done for her reluctantly 
from motives of duty the most strict, was done in the 
case of her brothers willingly, eagerly, even anticipating 
their wants. 

Holliday — {With stern rebuke.) Oh, it is wrong 
for sisters to nourish such a feeling of jealousy against 
their brothers! 

Virginia — It goes deeper than jealousy; it is a feel- 
ing that we have been cheated out of the claims of our 
girlhood, more, our just rights as human beings! 

Holliday — I have done everything that lay in my 



ACT I . i8i 

power for my children, and it is meet they turn on me, 
now I am no longer fit to work, with reproaches be- 
cause I was unable to do more! I and your mother 
have denied ourselves the comforts, the recreations of 
our youth and middle age, cheerfully sacrificed our own 
desires, our natural inclinations to ease and pleasure, 
whilst we struggled and toiled unremittingly, upborne 
by our ambition for our children's future. 

Virginia — ^And we girls, too, suffered all our lives 
in that self-denial you practised. 

HoLLiDAY — It was necessary we economized, con- 
served our little resources. I was poor, I was without 
friends or powerful influence. From the first I was 
firmly resolved that my boys should not be handicapped 
in the race as their father had been, because of the lack 
of suitable training become the butts of insolent tyranny, 
the slaves of exacting and domineering masters! 

They should have the most favorable opportunity, 
the very best equipment it was in my power to give 
them. That was our purpose toward which we reso- 
lutely turned our faces. 

Virginia — You overdid it as do the other self-made 
fathers of this age beset with the fetich of the higher 
education, regardless of the fitness of those who are to 
receive it! Because you had fought your way upward 
without a helping hand extended in aid, you went to 
the opposite extreme with them. You indulged them, 
you smoothed from their pathways the obstacles. You 
continued to boost them, making it all too easy and tak- 
ing from them the desire to exert their own energies, 
as also depriving them of learning through struggle 
and difficulty the value of their education. And they 



i82 THE SUPREME TEST 

are selfish, money-spending, bent on their own comfort 
and pleasure, careless of the convenience or good times 
of others less favored, whom they ruthlessly push aside ! 

HoLLiDAY — {Tauntingly.) Meaning yourself, I 
suppose. 

Virginia — ^They are as indifferent to what becomes 
of Oressa and me as though we were the veriest out- 
siders. I tell you, there is something wrong in a rearing 
that teaches the men of a family to have not the slight- 
est consideration for the women! 

HoLLiDAY — Now I am accused, because I strained 
my every energy toward enabling my boys to become 
useful citizens, and to make some creditable figures 
in the world, with cruelly repressing my daughters! 
You insinuate I have failed in love for you! 

Virginia — It is not that I accuse you of failing to 
love us, but that you love your sons infinitely more. 

HoLLiDAY — It is no criterion I love them infinitely 
more because I have considered them first in the matter 
of advantages when they represent the name. 

Virginia — {Resentfully.) The cut and dried phi- 
losophy of old-fashioned days that teaches because wo- 
men are women, they should always stand second, for 
the reason they are of no particular account in the 
scheme of life. 

HoLLiDAY — They are not as measured against men's 
greater natural potency! 

Virginia — Imbued with that traditional idea, thus 
have you neglected, failed to develop our possibilities, 
given us no means by which we might be enabled to 
prove ourselves! Without confidence in our poten- 
tialities, you therefore have condemned us without trial. 



ACT I 183 

{Bitterly.) Your pride is in your sons, not in your 
daughters. 

HoLLiDAY — {Passionately.) My pride is in those 
who are grateful to me for my efforts in their behalf, 
not in those who heap undeserved reproach and abuse 
upon my head! 

Virginia — But you are blind, pa. You only see 
from the one viewpoint ! It is utterly hopeless to appeal 
to you, for you cannot put yourself in our place ! 

HoLLiDAY — {Leaping to his feet and advancing 
zvith threatening gestures upon Virginia.) Silence, I 
tell you! If you say another word, you ungrateful 
woman, I'll turn you out of the doors ! We can man- 
age without you or your sister, and it would be a relief 
to me if you would both get out! 

Mrs. Holliday — Benn, I beg of you not to talk so 
unguardedly ! 

Holliday — {Unheeding and with flashing eyeSj to 
Virginia.) It is you who can only see from the one 
side of the shield! How about our side? How about 
your mother and me, who were here long before you 
were even so much as thought of, who earned this home 
and who continue still to provide for it? Ours is the 
right to live our own lives as we will, and to spend our 
own earnings as seems best to us. I tell you, we 
don't need any advice as to our way of doing things 
and if you don't like it, you are not obliged to stay! 
It is the eternal tragedy of parents to be judged and 
censured and governed by those whom they brought 
into the world and reared! I have heard enough of 
this prattle of injustice! This is a free land, and if 
you think you are not being used right, you are at 



i84 THE SUPREME TEST 

liberty to go where you can do better for yourself! 
{Tauntingly.) All that ails you, Miss, is that you are 
jealous because your brothers are so much brighter 
than you. 

Virginia — {In a ringinff voice.) Though every- 
thing has been done to make them so, I deny that they 
are! 

HoLLiDAY — ^What have you ever done save live of? 
me? 

Virginia — My God, can partiality make a man so 
blind to common reason? 

HoLLiDAY — Go, I say! {Raises his hand menac- 
ingly. Virginia looks at him in fearless disdain. Slowly, 
without moving an eyelash, she moves backward.) 

Exit. 

{Holliday paces the floor restlessly, evincing much 
perturbation. Gloomily.) Was ever a man so found 
fault with, so badgered, whose intentions have not been 
other than kindly and for the best interests of his 
family? That is the most exasperating girl I believe 
ever lived. She drives me frantic, Beulahl 

Mrs. Holliday — They are all of them a continual 
care and anxiety. I sometimes think those are for- 
tunate who never had any children, for they are spared 
the pains and worries of responsibility. As I look back, 
Benn, on the years that have passed, I can see that 
our happiest days, though full of toil and privation, 
were those when our children were little and dependent 
on our love. 

Holliday — {Groaning.) Before they had grown 
big enough to upbraid us. 

Mrs. Holliday — I am uneasy about that poor child. 



ACT I 185 

She has had a terrible blow. I hope Virginia can afford 
her a little consolation. 

Ho.LLiDAY — {Continuinff to pace the floor.) I am 
all worked up and unstrung. 

Reenter Virginia with a folded slip of paper. 

Scene IV 

Virginia — {To Holliday.) You have had your 
wish, pa, as regards one of us. 

Mrs. Holliday — How is Oressa? 

Virginia — She is gone! 

Mrs. Holliday — Gone? 

Virginia — I went to her room to see if I could 
comfort her a little. The gas was turned low. Noth- 
ing was apparently disarranged or disturbed. No one 
was there. I called. I received no answer. Then I 
saw this folded note lying on Trelawny's "Recollec- 
tions" on her dresser. {Opens the note and reads.) 

I am going away. Don't worry. It is all right. 
Some time you will understand. ... I took ten dollars 
from your purse, mommy, which I will repay as soon 
as I sell Merritt's ring. Tell pa I have made up my 
mind to make good. 

Lovingly, 

Oressa. 

Mrs. Holliday — Gone! I thought her talk about 
going for herself was just a mere threat. 
Virginia — {With a bitter smile.) She does not 



1 86 THE SUPREME TEST 

spend her time making idle threats as some others of 
us do ; she acts. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^Why, the girl has never been away 
from home a day in her life! She has not had the 
slightest experience in traveling! She will come to 
harm! {Excitedly.) We must go right after her and 
bring her back! 

Holliday — {Grimly.) Let her go. She needs the 
lesson. Let her find out what the hardships of this 
world are and what real poverty means. Maybe, then, 
she'll come back and appreciate what her father has 
done for her. {Sits down heavily on the sofa.) 

{Several moments pass, charged with deepest sus- 
pense.) 

Holliday — {In a broken voice.) For my devo- 
tion to my family, for the best years of my strength 
spent in its service, — this is my reward ! Those who 
should be the solace of my old age are its affliction! 

Mrs. Holliday — We thought we had trouble years 
ago when death took little Arthur from us, but this 
is the worst we have ever known! {Begins to cry.) 

Virginia — {To Holliday.) Don't censure her too 
harshly. Remember she is ardent, full of restless en- 
ergy, even as you were in the days of your young 
strength, and now that her expectation of marriage 
is gone, she craves action. If she stayed on here after 
this misfortune that has come to her to-night, what 
would she have with which to occupy herself save her 
brooding disappointment? What would she have to 
look forward to save years of forlorn emptiness drag- 
ging their weary length and slowly consuming cour- 
age and hope! It is better she goes. 



ACT I 187 

HoLLiDAY — {In a stricken voice.) Because she 
feels she has nothing to expect from her father. To 
have my child leave me because she thinks I have been 
unfair to her, to be forsaken by my youngest, my baby 
girl, — oh, it is bitter! I did the best I knew hovi^, 
as God is my witness! {Bends his white head in his 
hands. ) 

Virginia — {Going to him and putting her hand on 
his shoulder.) You did the best as you saw the light. 
I am sorry, pa, for what I said a while back. I spoke 
in my blind anguish and passion. I fully recognize 
your right to do with your own as you see fit and I 
know it is not for me to turn you aside from your 
chosen way of life. I am sorry what I said, pa. I 
didn't mean to be unfilial. 

{Holliday remains silent j his head bent in his 
hands.) 

Curtain falls slowly. 



ACT II 

A study in Duquet's New York Apartments. 

It is a spacious room with a rich dark Wilton rug 
on the floor and contains a leather couch, easy chairs, 
bookcase, a writing desk of mahogany, and pictures 
on the walls. A fire of gas logs is burning in the grate 
on the west side, surmounted by a high mantel. In the 
middle of the room is a dining-table, covered with 
a white damask cloth, from which everything has been 
removed save the wine bottles, glasses and cigar trays. 
There are two doors beside the double doors of the 
main entrance that open on a corridor that gives upon 
outside stairs, one being at the north-east extremity, 
the other to the north-west covered with a red velvet 
portiere and leading to Duquet's private suite. 

A large window is to the south-east. 

Time — Nearly midnight of evening in late No- 
vember, three years later. 

Duquet, Leavenworth, MacLachlan, Davies, and 
other members of the Parnassus Circle, are seated 
around the table smoking. 

Scene I 

Leavenworth — {In soft, deliberate accents, and 
tilting luxuriously back in his chair.) Well, I can 
i88 



ACT II 



189 



say with a clear conscience that whatever our host's 
deficiencies may be in the matter of the fine arts in 
general, in that of choosing wines and cigars he is a 
born connoisseur. 

DuQUET — Say whatever comes in your head, old 
top. These are the secure heights so far removed from 
the miasma of common earth that free speaking is 
safely indulged in without the slightest risk of any 
one's amour propre being wounded. 

Leavenworth — {Softly and slowly.) But 'twould 
be folly to criticize Havanas of such unimpeachable 
variety. 

MacLachlan — ^What the dickens are we poor 
devils to do when our turn rolls around for playing 
the host? I can't afford to provide genuine weeds 
like these. 

Leavenworth — Aw, you could afford to provide 
'em well enough if you didn't hurl your plunks at the 
play girls. It's lamentable for a man to whom we 
look as a guide in matters of conduct to continue in 
the indulgence of such unseemly levity as you do at 
your time of life. 

MacLachlan — Hold up on your homily, you 
canting Pharisee, you arch hypocrite! How dare you 
make references to my having gone ofif in the sere and 
yellow! Why, you're five years older than I if you're 
a day! 

Leavenworth — I shall expose your disreputable 
behavior before this august company nor leave you a 
shred of garment to decently cover your unsanctified 
hide. Hear then, gentlemen: From my box only 
the other night I saw this unregenerate hoary rascal 



190 THE SUPREME TEST 

sitting in bald-headed row in the brazen occupation 
of ogling my actresses! 

Davies^ — The vision of their coyly revealed charms 
doubtless excited his too ready susceptibilities even 
more than the white bosoms of Garrick's girls disturbed 
the serenity of that irreproachable old moralist, Sam 
Johnson. 

MacLachlan — The stuff you had crammed in 
their innocent mouths was so confoundedly high-brow 
that in sheer desperation I had to divert myself a trifle 
for the punishment of sitting through the dreary mess. 

Leavenworth — ^After luring them for three con- 
secutive hours with false smiles, after lulling their 
apprehensions to sleep with vigorous applause, you had 
the consummate meanness the next morning to roast 
the entire cast. 

MacLachlan — Twas my duty. I have tried to 
conscientiously fill Bill Winters's shoes. And plain 
honesty forces me to say that it was Sudermann, 
Hauptmann, Max Halbe, all mixed together in an 
indistinguishable concoction! Ye powers! 

DuQUET — Go it, old top! 

{Leavenworth makes a playful lunge at MacLach- 
lan. Good humor and laughter prevail among the 
Parnassians.) 

Davies — Oh, that mine enemy would write a 
play! 

Leavenworth — {Significantly.) He can write a 
novel all right and there are plenty of reviewers lurk- 
ing around every corner. 

A Parnassian- — If you want to hear the welcome 
music of the good American dollars jingling merrily 



ACT II 191 

in your jeans, let your writings be shallow and obvious, 
guiltless of design, treating of nothing in particular, 
of a structure the slightest and import the most flimsy. 
Disregard such trifling details as sequence or coher- 
ence; eschew whatever is subtle or puzzling or liable 
to kindle thought, shun the vital questions that con- 
front human life as you would the plague, away with 
its serious issues! If you want to creep snugly to the 
heart of the dear undiscriminating public, don't make 
any attempt toward an aim, just jot down whatever 
unreflecting idea chances to pop in your head. 

Another Parnassian — Give the public balder- 
dash. 

A Parnassian — Use the same old themes, the same 
old plots, the same old solutions and point the same 
old moral. Above all, be sure and make it end hap- 
pily. Keep to the stock pattern and be safe. That's 
the recipe for an artistic success in this country. 

DuQUET — But you can't have any real artistic suc- 
cess without ideas back of it. 

A Parnassian — ^^Pshaw! What's artistic success 
save tickling the public? And does the public want 
ideas? It wants amusement! 

DuQUET — If the ideas are big enough to really 
impress it, it welcomes them. When a play is lacking 
in ideas, what does it stand for? If it is worth any- 
thing as a contribution to the world it represents the 
man who wrote it, indeed is a vital part of him, ex- 
pressing as it does his reflections and views of life if 
not his special experience. And if he is sincere he- 
writes from that individual standpoint as he sees life 
through his own nature, personal observation, and, as 



192 THE SUPREME TEST 

he knows it, through practical acquaintance. 

Another Parnassian — ^You and your running- 
mate, Leavenworth, take your mission too seriously. 
You are too conscientious in your aims. Come to earth 
and the gold will rush in a flood to overflow your 
coffers. 

DuQUET — {Laughing.) I begin to believe there 
are Philistines of the deepest dye here who have man- 
aged some way to scale the heights and interlope them- 
selves amidst this transcendent company. 

MacLachlan — ^That reminds me there's a new 
candidate for membership in our circle. 

DuQUET — ^Who is the would-be member? 

MacLachlan — ^Young Sprigg, of the Columbia 
faculty. 

Leavenworth — What's he done that he should 
aspire to the honor of being reckoned a Parnassian ? 

MacLachlan — He has published a very creditable 
volume of essays that reveal painstaking scholarship. 

Davies — ^We are not going to receive him. 

Leavenworth — Not a chap is eligible here who 
hasn't achieved a piece of work of original and sig- 
nificant value that stamps him as of the distinctly cre- 
ative order of mind. 

MacLachlan — He's a nice gentlemanly chap, 

Leavenworth — So there are hundreds of nice 
chaps but we are not of the mind to avail ourselves 
of their gentlemanly society. 

MacLachlan — He's making a desperate bid for 
fame in the intellectual world. 

Leavenworth — He needn't bid for entrance here. 

MacLachlan — ^What the deuce am I to tell him? 



ACT II 193 

He's mj'^ personal friend. 

Leavenworth — ^Tell him this is a close and dis- 
criminating and snobbish corporation and you'll have 
to turn down his application. 

A Parnassian — ^Yes, turn it down. 

Parnassians — {Together.) Turn it down! 

Leavenworth — {Laughing.) A cheer for our 
solidarity. 

Parnassians — ( Together. ) Hurrah ! 

DuQUET — I make a bid that our responsibilities be 
steadfastly directed toward the raising of literature 
to its highest plane whatever may be the obstacles con- 
fronting us either in failure to win ephemeral popu- 
larit}^ or in detriment to personal advantage. 

A Parnassian — Hear, hear ! 

Davies — Mine host stands confessed an idealist of 
the most uncompromising stripe. 

DuQUET — Every man present is an idealist or he 
wouldn't have been able to effect the achievement that 
gained him his admittance here. 

MacLachlan — In addition, he's a second Shelley, 
a champion of the regeneration of Society. You are 
young, my son, you are young.! 

Parnassians — Hear, hear ! 

MacLachlan — Oh, you kid, you picturesque 
Southern kid! What impracticable fancies do you not 
cherish in that dreamy brain! 

Davies — We chaps who plume ourselves on the 
idea that we are specially deputed by the Muses to 
deliver new and important truths to a waiting world 
are as circumscribed in our knowledge and outlook 
on life as the veriest tyros. Wliat, for instance, do 



194 THE SUPREME TEST 

we really know of the great submerged tenth? 

MacLachlan — We might, like Charles Dickens, 
take midnight rambles in dark out-of-the-way places, 
discovering hidden retreats in order to acquaint our- 
selves with the habits and manner of existence of the 
desperate characters who infest the slums. 

A Parnassian — Place ourselves on a pleasant, easy 
comraderish footing with thieves, hired assassins, cut- 
throats, and such delectable gentry. 'Twould surely 
prove a diverting experience. 

{Leavenworth goes and stretches himself out full 
length on the sofa where he smokes meditatively.) 

Davies — ^You do not fully take in my meaning. 
The submerged is not confined alone to the foul, 
depraved, hopelessly vicious and degenerate, it includes 
also the unfortunate, the miserably poor, the disen- 
franchised oi earth, cheated out of their opportunities 
by reason of social injustice and arbitrary distinctions, 
though both alike are the victims of an unfair system. 

MacLachlan — Aw, you are trying to foist social- 
ism on us! 

Davies, — {Rising and pacing the floor.) Here are 
we chaps, born and reared to the great middle class, 
snugly sandwiched between the strata representing 
the extremes of misery and prosperity, — the substan- 
tial conservative class that pledges us from the outset 
to a degree at any rate of decency and external respec- 
tability. And the divisions of this middle class formed 
by professional association, like standards of living, 
and like social ideals are as rigidly defined, as difficult 
to escape as the Brahmanical castes. Who goes out- 
side his clique now-a-days? Who has interest in or 



ACT II 195 

indeed knows aught of life that is not bounded by his 
social traditions or needs? The great throbbing life 
of the world of humanity is a blank. 

Thus trained to fixed standards of education, im- 
bued with certain well-defined, well-established aims, 
excellent enough, we admit, if we are true to our in- 
structions and traditions, I might with propriety add 
our instincts, our writings are in accordance. What is 
the result? Why, the portrayal of matter-of-fact con- 
ditions so utterly conventional as to debar much vigor 
or originality. A man is not moved to either great 
invention or magnificent eloquence unless he is treating 
of a theme that stirs his own soul to its depths as some 
major wrong to be righted, the mishap of pitiful cir- 
cumstance that involves the suffering of the innocent, 
the yielding to temptation with the consequent expia- 
tion of the offense. If we know nothing of these, of 
the trials of those handicapped by ignorance, beset by 
evils, of the misery endured by those exposed to want, 
often reduced to the very elementals of life, how are 
we to overmaster, to possess ourselves of the hearts 
of our audience ? Is it to be wondered at that we lack 
power, go stale? And then we think we are commis- 
sioned to portray women folks! What man here, I 
should like to know, has any real understanding of a 
woman? Don't answer all of you at once. 

First Parnassian — She's a riddle, a Boeotian 
Thebes, and the wise man is he who has sense enough 
to know he can't solve the mystery of her! 

Parnassians — {Together.) Hear, hear! 

Leavenworth — ^The mystery of her lies within 
ourselves. 



196 THE SUPREME TEST 

Parnassians — {Together.) Hear, hear! 

Leavenworth — I repeat, there is no enigma about 
her save of our own making. 

MacLachlan — ^Are you in delirium, Levvy, that 
you mock us thus? 

Leavenworth — Never more consciously sane. We 
have conceived out of our brains a creature belonging 
neither to heaven nor earth, a creature whom we have 
endowed with every social and domestic quality, whom 
we have imbued with the surpassing virtue, grace and 
excellence of a goddess, lacking only reason and in- 
telligence. And having conceived her in this state of 
moral perfection, we have been busy since in trying 
to make the reality correspond with our ideal, which 
has been the prevailing ideal of centuries of other men. 
When we are willing to take this creature off its im- 
possible pedestal and admit in our minds that it is 
just a being like ourselves, sprung from a race of 
others like ourselves, moved by the identical desires, 
the identical hopes that impel us, possessed of the same 
prejudices, frailties and weaknesses, inspired by the 
same passions and emotions that are common to us, 
then shall we comprehend her and know her to be 
neither better nor worse than the other half of human 
kind, the half we represent! 

MacLachlan — ^Why, Levvy, do you realize you 
are reducing her to the earthy of the earthy if she 
partakes of our moral infirmities? Unchivalrous man! 

DuQUET — It is repugnant to degrade woman to 
such a level. I prefer to think of her as a being of 
unblemished morality, of noble unassailable virtue. 

Leavenworth — ^The stock talk of a Southerner, 



ACT II 197 

my son, who whilst he pelts her with the roses of his 
fine homage will deliberately repress the strivings of 
her mind and deny her the most precious aspirations 
of her womanhood! 

The chap who has done a misdemeanor now and 
then, sowed a few wild oats here and there in his 
youthful days, even committed a grave sin, is accounted 
a stronger man and better qualified to withstand future 
temptations, and to pronounce through experience of 
good and evil the advantage of decent conduct over 
bad, than he who has never proved life or himself. 
Do we think less of this chap for his knowledge if it 
has served to broaden his character? Then why think 
less of a woman who has also known life? 

DuQUET — Oh, I cannot admit the idea of woman 
whom we have always been taught to reverence build- 
ing up her character through the experience of evil 
and worse, the defilement of her innocence! 

Leavenworth — I can! and more, I can bring my- 
self to forgive her a lapse from that innocence even as 
I would ask to be forgiven because I know from my 
own case how hard it is to resist temptation when 
it presents itself in its subtly alluring shape! 

DuQUET — ^The supreme test of character in man 
or woman lies in the moral force to withstand temp- 
tation. 

Leavenworth — The supreme test of character in 
man or woman lies in the ability Antaeus like to rise 
grandly from defeat! 

First Parnassian — Come, come, Lewy, do you 
know you are confessing yourself not only a radical 
but a downright revolutionist who would overthrow 



198 THE SUPREME TEST 

the bulwarks of civilization and menace the peace of 
society? If you view with the same lenity license of 
conduct on woman's part as you view on ours, what 
is to become of the integrity of the family, the sanctity 
of the home, which constitute the fundamental unit 
in the organization of national life? 

Leavenworth — I am no conservatist where usages 
are worn out and where principles discriminate against 
one sex and are detrimental to its development. 

Another Parnassian — He is an uncompromising 
advocate of the one standard! 

Leavenworth — {With deep earnestness.) I am 
an uncompromising advocate of the Fair Deal! I 
thank heaven I am a citizen of the world, free from 
the narrow provincial opinions of a community, — the 
hard and fast notions of localism, — emancipated from 
adherence to any custom, cult, institution or country. 
If the rest of you who are mulish bigots holding tight 
to your moss-grown opinions because they are time- 
honored would just open your eyes, you would see 
things in a reasonable light. 

{Parnassians smile and exchange glances.) 

Duquet — Such philosophy is too repugnant to en- 
tertain a moment. 

Leavenworth — And why is it repugnant, my son? 
Because we men in our relations with women are 
despotically selfish as Turks. We claim and keep them 
body and soul absolutely our own. 

In order to preserve the family intact, which is the 
main concern of governments, monogamy has been 
made the symbol of civilization and it has become a 
game to be played to the end by the two paired off 



ACT II 199 

together. Some men with a fine sense of honor and duty, 
when once pledged to it, play this game on the square ; 
other men chafe unceasingly because their liberty of 
choice is restricted, their natural inclinations shackled, 
and try by devious means to circumvent and evade 
the rules and cheat their partners. Women, who are 
bound to the regulations more strictly than their mates 
and who are by nature the conservators of moral tra- 
ditions, demand that every sister woman shall hold to 
the very letter of them. Woe to her who is discov- 
ered not playing fair, for the entire sex rises en masse 
to crush her by sheer weight of social interdiction! 
We demand from women that which we could not 
possibly give in return. The woman to whom we 
intrust this precious honor of ours dragged through 
the mire of a thousand contemptible follies, must come 
to us as unsullied from contact with the world, as free 
from trace of life's experience as a babe in arms. 
(Rises and with his hands deep in his pockets strides 
about the room.) 

I sincerely believe that every form of life is unfolded 
by stages through uniform laws from lower to higher, 
and that this development in human life intellectually 
and morally is brought about through one agency 
only, — that of experience. And we have denied her 
that experience. The entire gist of the matter is, in 
these relations such a thing as equality of interests 
or responsibilities fails to exist and therefore they are 
devoid of justice. We have pampered, petted and 
fondled her as a child when she was in our favor, 
scolded and repressed her again as a child when she 
has offended, and cast her utterly aside at the first 



200 THE SUPREME TEST 

major transgression. We have followed a course with 
her that has succeeded in crushing her individuality 
and dwarfing her soul. And it matters not what our 
exaggerated ideals of her innate superiority may "be, 
the process has not failed in leaving its inevitable re- 
sult, 

Davies — ^We men allow ourselves a multitude of 
resources, grant ourselves a hundred good qualities and 
attributes of character, but we leave her only the one 
supreme possession, — her moral purity. She's perfect 
as an ideal to our minds, as a reality she's a being to 
be directed, bullied and kept subordinated to our mas- 
culine absolutism. 

First Parnassian — Whatever she may be for 
the sake of argument as an ideal or a reality, our acts 
are a revelation of the incontrovertible truth that she's 
the most important thing existing on this footstool for 
every man of us. For her sake we strive, we toil up 
the steep road of knowledge, we seek to gain a footing 
on the slippery eminence of success. She's the main- 
spring of our activities, the inspirer of our ambitions, 
the blessed goal of our hopes and attainments. And 
among all the women of earth, the finest, the truest, 
the most brilliant, the most helpful are right here in 
little old U. S. A. ! My toast is to the fairest flower 
of the world's civilization, the crown and glory of 
womanhood, the American girl, God bless her! 

Parnassians — {Rising.) To the American girl! 
{They touch glasses and drink.) 

MacLachlan — {Chanting.) Sing the song that 
Dr. Martin Luther sang! 

{They join hands and sing.) 



ACT II 20I 

Dir wiinsch' ich Wein und Madchenkuss, 

Und deinem Klepper Pegasus 

Die Krippe stets voll Futter! 

Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang, 

Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang, 

Sagt Doktor Martin Luther. 

{They drink again.) 

First Parnassian — {Setting down his glass.) 
Dandy time, old top! Appreciate best of hospitality. 

Another Parnassian — Prince of hosts! Shan't 
forget this stimulating conversation. Good luck, 
Dukkie, auf wiedersehen ! 

( They begin breaking up amidst jovial cries of 
Good night.) 

Exeunt ParnassianSj leaving only Duquet, Leaven- 
worthj MacLachlan and Davies. 

Davies — ^When we meet a fortnight hence in my 
rooms the Parnassians will be privileged to hear the 
reading of my novel in manuscript. 

Leavenworth — You are the one who will be privi- 
leged to get our valuable opinion on its merits. 

MacLachlan — Or to be damned by the thorough 
roasting the Circle will doubtless feel in duty bound to 
accord it. 

Davies — I don't stand in any awe of your criticism, 
old boy. Some day you'll have a come-back red hot, 
never fear. 

Duquet — {Listening.) Is that rain? 

Leavenworth — Sounds mighty like it, kid. 

{Duquet goes to the window, raises it and looks 
out anxiously.) 



202 THE SUPREME TEST 

Leavenworth — {Chanting.) Wait, oh, wait until 
mine enemy writes a book! 

MacLachlan — Shut up your croaking! I've been 
pretty forbearing with you. 

Leavenworth — Forbearing, you reptile, and you've 
never missed a chance to sting me ! 

{Duquet returns from the window and paces un- 
easily about the room.) 

MacLachlan — {Laughing.) I might have stung 
worse, with the provocation you've given me. 

Leavenworth — Professed friendship serves not the 
slightest protection when the devil of a dramatic critic 
is running loose. {To Ditquet.) What the dickens 
is the matter with you, son? Expect your sweetheart, 
and in agony because we don't vamoose? 

Duquet — My sister. 

Leavenworth — ^Ah! beg pardon! Perhaps we'd 
better go, chaps. 

Duquet — No, no! I want you to meet her. 

Leavenworth — {Languidly.) Perhaps she won't 
consider herself very highly favored to meet three 
dyed-in-the-wool old batches. 

Duquet — She's just turned nineteen. 

Leavenworth — ^Then she's as safe with us as with 
her grandfathers. 

MacLachlan — {Bristling.) I'll give you to un- 
derstand. Mister, that I'm no dyed-in-the-wool old 
bachelor. 

Leavenworth — Pshaw! you're confirmed, Mac. 

MacLachlan — There are yet hopes for love's 
young dream when a chap is still only sweet, unso- 
phisticated, tender thirty-five. But when he's on the 



ACT II 203 

wrong side of forty his outlook is certainly dubious. 

Leavenworth — I'm philosophic enough to be re- 
signed to my fate; but you're sore, Mac, and strug- 
gling and kicking like a vicious horse at your waning 
chances. I believe your desperate state drives you to 
your surly attacks on unoffending dramatists. (Mac- 
Lachlan makes a lunge at hinij which he nimbly 
evades. ) 

Davies — ^There is a strong matrimonial chance for 
Dukkie, here. He's still in the running. 

Leavenworth — ^The youngest gentleman in com- 
pany. Take warning in time, son, from the pitiful 
example of your elders and hie yourself to the altar as 
quickly as you can foot it. 

Duquet — ^Thanks for your kindly concern, but I 
am not going hunting after love. If it comes to me 
it will come naturally of itself. It's too beautiful and 
sacred a thing for a chap to go deliberately in search 
of. Why, to do that would spoil the whole charm 
of it! 

Leavenworth — When you reach the exalted age 
your venerable friends have attained to, you'll have 
to chase the pretty rainbow phantom at lively speed, or 
it sure will elude you as it has Mac, here. 

{MacLachlan makes another lunge at him.) 

Enter Flossie Duquet, nineteen years old, encased 
in a long rose-hued opera coat, wearing a big plumed 
evening hat and white gloves. 

Scene II 

Flossie — It's raining! Oh! (Starts back.) 
Duquet — {Coming forward.) Allow me to pre- 



204 THE SUPREME TEST 

sent to you these gentlemen whom I very much desire 
you to meet because they are my staunchest friends. 
This is Leavenworth, Flossie, here are MacLachlan 
and Davies. Fellows, my sister. 

Flossie — {In a sweet girlish high treble and with 
pronounced Southern accent.) It is a great pleasure, 
gentlemen, to find you here. He has told me so much 
about you that I am fairly consumed with curiosity 
to learn if I have really formed a right opinion of 
you. {Shaking hands severally.) Mr. Leavenworth 
takes his profession seriously. He is the American 
von Hauptmann. Mr, MacLachlan, you are the 
arbiter of the stage, and a most conscientious one, too, 
I understand, sparing neither friend nor foe when in 
the discharge of your duty. And you, Mr. Davies, 
write novels which one cannot leave off reading when 
once started because the interest is so compelling. {Be- 
gins to remove her opera cloak.) 

Leavenworth — {Springing forward.) Allow me! 
{Lays the cloak carefully over a chair. To MacLach- 
lan.) Well, Mac, are we to consider ourselves flat- 
tered by her estimate of our performances? 

MacLachlan — Frankly, it opens grounds for 
some uncertainty. 

Flossie — {Removing the pins from her hat.) Oh, 
I mean to be complimentary, you know. I have not 
the slightest thought of wounding your amour propre. 
{Laughs softly like a chime of silver bells and is dis- 
closed in evening gown of blue charmeuse exposing 
neck and shoulders.) 

Duquet — I've been worrying for fear you might 
get wet. 



ACT II 205 

Flossie — You needn't have worried. Mrs. Dal- 
liance had her limousine and the chauffeur held an 
umbrella over me to the door. {Gives her hat to 
Leavenworthj who deposits it with great care and 
deliberation on the top of the book case.) You are 
altogether too concerned over me, Armand. {To the 
others.) This big brother of mine is a regular old 
fogy regarding me. He would keep me wrapped in 
cotton all the time if I didn't protest. {Pats Duquet 
affectionately on the shoulder.) Now, gentlemen, you 
are going to have coffee with me. 

Leavenworth — Indeed, no. We could not think 
of staying any longer. We have already imposed on 
your brother's hospitality. It is past twelve now and 
we have been here since eight o'clock. 

Flossie — {Stripping off her long gloves.) Then I 
reckon it will not do harm to any one if you stay a 
little longer. Positively, I shall not take no for an 
answer. {Rings the bell.) 

MacLachlan — Oh, really! 

Davies — It is so kind of you, but on account of the 
late hour we must go. 

Flossie — How can I become acquainted with you 
if you run away from me? So enough of your objec- 
tions. I shall be right offended if you refuse me. 

Leavenworth — It is our last wish to offend you. 

Enter Willetts. 

Flossie — Bring coffee for five, Willetts, and plates 
of sandwiches and cake. 
Willetts — ^Yes, Miss. 

Exit Willetts. 



2o6 THE SUPREME TEST 

Flossie — My brother wants me to know all his 
friends. {Seats herself, displaying her pretty little 
feet in high-heeled white slippers. The men sit down, 
regarding her with admiration.) Didn't you say so, 
Armand, when you invited me here? 

DuQUET — Of course. 

Flossie — {Confidentially.) So that I could see 
which one I liked best. 

Davies — If we do not prove a disappointment to 
you, we shall esteem ourselves signally honored. 

Flossie — How could literary men disappoint me? 

Leavenworth — Why might they not? 

Flossie — ^Why do you ask, Mr. Leavenworth, when 
you know they are so different from other men ? 

Leavenworth — {Smiling.) How, different? 

Flossie — How? Er {Triumphantly.) Well, 

for one thing, they have more sentiment because they 
have time to devote to their feelings and indulge their 
nice sensibilities, while ordinary men are so busy doing 
real work in the world they can't spend thought on 
such things. 

Leavenworth — {Smiling.) You think literary 
men are not doing real work? 

Flossie — Why, not the practical, every-day work 
that is absolutely essential! 

MacLachlan — She means they don't grow "the 
coarser plants of daily necessity." 

Flossie — ^You have said it, Mr. MacLachlan. How 
did you think up a way to express it so pat? 

MacLachlan — I wasn't smart enough to think it 
up. I appropriated the phrase from an old duffer who 
used to live in the long ago at a place called Tarry- 



ACT II 207 

town on the Hudson. 

Flossie — (Naively.) That shows they are so much 
cleverer and wittier than other men. 

MacLachlan — But it is proverbial that literary- 
men are dull in social life because they save their wit 
for their writings where it will bring them financial 
profit to the tune of so much per line. 

Flossie — {Shaking her head.) They couldn't help 
emitting flashes now and then when they are so chock- 
full of cleverness. You are jesting, Mr. MacLachlan. 
(Triu?nphantly.) I can prove it right here by my own 
brother. Armand is not dull and no one in my hear- 
ing shall disparage him ! 

MacLachlan— You have an enthusiastic cham- 



pioness 



DuQUET — I am glad I have one somewhere. 

Davies — (To Flossie.) How do you like little old 
New York? 

Flo3Sie — (Enthusiastically.) I perfectly adore it. 
With the stores, the big theaters, the darling restau- 
rants, the beautiful women in their stunning gowns, 
it is right fascinating! I fairly dote on Broadway, and 
Fifth Avenue is the most wonderful boulevard, with a 
rush of automobiles going down one side and up the 
other all day long! I don't wonder people get run 
down and killed in New York. One never knows 
what is going to happen next. It is so exciting! I am 
enjoying every minute. 

Leavenworth — Of course you are. 

Flossie — Mrs. Dalliance, who is chaperoning me, 
takes me to no end of places, — to the opera one night, 
the theater, a ball or a reception the next, where I meet 



2o8 THE SUPREME TEST 

such stacks of young men, many of them downright 
howling swells! Her husband is on the Exchange, 
you know, and disgustingly rich, and so she has entree 
to all sorts of fashionable houses and she introduces 
me to lovely people who belong to what you call up 
here the smart set. We should call them at home the 
F. F. Vs. 

Reenter JVilletts hearing a Ira's containing coffee, 
sandwiches and cake, which he sets on the table. 

Flossie — {To Willetts.) There, that will do. 
Thank you very much, Willetts. 

Exit Willetts. 

Flossie — {With charming grace beginning to pour 
the coffee from the silver pot into the china cups.) 
To-night we went to the New Amsterdam to see your 
play, Mr. Leavenworth. 

Leavenworth — Ah, indeed. I hope you were not 
unfavorably impressed with it? 

Flossie — I thought it very nice indeed, only in- 
clined to be a trifle gloomy and with such moving 
climaxes! . . . One or two lumps, Mr. Leavenworth? 

Leavenworth — Not any. 

Flossie — Oh, how odd! If you loved sweets as 
much as I do, Mr. Leavenworth, you would want two 
lumps at the very least. 

Leavenworth — I shall not forget your partiality 
for sweets. 

Flossie — I didn't dream of meaning that for a 
hint, you know, Mr. Leavenworth; it just slipped out 
unawares, but so long as you have taken it so, I will 
tell you I do prefer Allegretti, those big black choco- 
lates. . . . How can you bring yourself to have your 



ACT II 209 

heroine's emotions so tortured through such horrid 
trials if you really love her? And Armand says a 
playwright grows to love his heroine just as he would 
a sweetheart in real life. I was terribly worked on 
by your play. It was truly gripping. 

MacLachlan — Did I understand you to say 
gripping or ripping? 

Flossie — Gripping, of course, Mr. MacLachlan. 
Only farces and such cheap entertainments designed 
for common persons are ripping. I fear you are in- 
clined to be sarcastic, Mr. MacLachlan. Will you 
have cream? 

MacLachlan — Clear. 

Flossie — ^You gentlemen are diverse in your tastes. 
Well, I felt all trembly and I couldn't hardly keep 
from crying all soft and to myself, you know, and all 
the audience was using its handkerchiefs and clearing 
its throats. Your people were in such trouble, Mr. 
Leavenworth. Why should people have trouble and 
suffer so when this world is full of happiness, with 
everything in it to enjoy? I never have trouble. 

Leavenworth — Others are not so fortunate. 

Flossie — ^Why, they could be if they were only 
sensible. They needn't allow themselves to be un- 
fortunate. When I attended boarding-school, Mr. 
Leavenworth, I remember several rather shabby-look- 
ing girls there who were always going about complain- 
ing they were cut out from good times, that other girls 
snubbed them and that the teachers showed preference 
— favoritism, in short. It was such nonsense, Mr. 
Leavenworth. Why should any one want to slight 
any one else? It was just their imagination. Fancy 



2IO THE SUPREME TEST 

any one with such a jealous disposition! They should 
have immediately set about correcting it and curbing 
their unlovely tendencies, meanwhile not letting any of 
the good things get past them. 

Leavenworth — Suppose they couldn't get the good 
things ? 

Flossie — ^Why, they are there to be gotten! 

Leavenworth — Supposing they proved too elusive 
for your shabby girls to grasp? 

Flossie — Now you are quizzing me, Mr. Leaven- 
worth, and that isn't fair, you know. 

MacLachlan — ^That man is always moralizing. 
He was a parson in his former state of existence, Miss 
Duquet, holding down his petrified congregation with 
his eternal twelfthlies and thirteenthlies, 

Flossie — {Shaking her head.) Perhaps he, was a 
school master. 

MacLachlan — {With interest.) Do you think 
any pedagogue could have been so eminently dull? 

Flossie — Oh, some are very dull and heavy. I 
know once I had a man teacher — ^he was the principal 
of the seminary — and when he put his eye-glasses 
astride his nose and stared at one he was downright 
portentous, you know. I stood in such trembling awe 
of him, you can't imagine! 

MacLachlan — Did I understand you to say por- 
tentous or pretentious? 

Flossie — He was both. 

MacLachlan — And both would be appropriately 
characteristic. 

Flossie — I protest you are a worse quiz than your 
friend, Mr. Leavenworth. 



ACT II 211 

DuQUET — Come, now, the pedagogue calls this 
school to order. These big boys of mine are too much 
inclined to levity. 

Flossie — But seriously, I do honestly think that of 
all the professions that of a literary man is the most 
delightful and exclusive. 

MacLachlan — Because the literary man is the 
man to vv^hom is vouchsafed the delightful and ex- 
clusive privilege of starving to death? 

Flossie — Oh, it is not considered exclusive to starve 
to death now-a-days! Only stupid people do that. 
Are you always jesting, Mr. MacLachlan? 

MacLachlan — Not more than I can help. But 
in my business of judging asinine productions and try- 
ing to discover merits where there are no merits, the 
responsibility sometimes proves too much and my 
tortured brain seeks frivolity in sheer despair. 

Leavenworth — Confidentially, I will inform you 
that in his early state of prehistoric man he was the 
head jester of the court. 

Flossie — {Clapping her hands.) Of anthropoid 
apes! 

DuQUET — {Rapping on the table.) Order! I 
shall give this school recess if it doesn't brace up ! 

Davies — It's about time it was dismissed! 

{A knock sounds on the door. MacLachlan goes and 
opens it.) 

Enter Oressa Holliday^ her threadbare garments wet, 
her hair disheveled, her hat shapeless. She is wildly 
haggard in appearance, confused in her manner. The 
rain driving against the window is distinctly heard. 



212 THE SUPREME TEST 

Scene III 

Oressa — {Staggering in.) Is Mr. Armand Du- 
quet here? 

DuQUET — {Coming forward.) I am Armand Du- 
quet. 

Oressa — {With wandering glances.) The light 
. . . the warmth . . . it's like heaven! {In short, 
broken sentences.) I have tried to keep away — to the 
last moment — not to bother you. It was in my mind 
all along that if everything failed — I still had a last 
resort in you. I didn't intend only if I reached my 
extremity. There is nothing left me now. {Smiles 
vaguely and sways forward uncertainly.) 

Flossie — {Clasping her hands apprehensively.) The 
woman is insane ! 

Duquet — {To Oressa.) I am at your service. 
Command me. You are wet. Permit me to help 
you with these soaking wraps. 

Oressa — {Murmuring, putting up her hand uncer- 
tainly to her hat.) My hat — the pins . . . you don't 
remember . . . {Smiles again. He takes her hat, re- 
moves her jacket.) 

Oressa — It is so cold. I have been in front here a 
long time trying to remember where I was. 

Duquet^ (/f great light breaking over his face.) 
My God! 

Oressa — You said come when I needed help. I 
didn't want to bother you. Please believe that. I am 
so sorry to have to bother you ... I feel so queer — 
my feet light as though in league boots moving on air — 
my head so giddy — everything so far away ! {In a sink- 



ACT II 213 

inff voice.) I guess perhaps I'm — I'm dying! (She 
reels forward and falls against his shoulder in a faint. 
Leavenworth, MacLachlan and Davies spring forward. 
They help Duquet lay her on the sofa. Duquet bends 
over her and chafes her hands.) 

MacLachlan — ^The poor girl is exhausted! 

Duquet — {In a quiet, clear voice.) Carroll, bring 
me some brandy from the table. Mix it stiff! {Leaven- 
worth goes to the table and pours from the carafe a lit- 
tle water in the wine glass and fills it up with the 
brandy. Duquet raises Oressa's head and with a spoon 
Leavenworth forces a little of the brandy between her 
teeth.) 

Duquet — Careful! A little at a time — now more 
. . . that is better . . . again! Ah, she is coming 
now! Stand back, bo}'s! 

{Oressa sighs deeply. With another long, quivering 
sigh she opens her eyes.) 

Oressa — ^Where am I? 

Duquet — {Slowly and distinctly.) You are in the 
New York apartments of Armand Duquet the play- 
wright. Miss Holliday, and among his friends. 

Oressa — Oh, yes. He told me — I remember — And 
I am secure here with him. He wouldn't let any harm 
come to me because he is a gentleman. I can trust 
him ... I thought I shouldn't be able to get here 
because things so many times became hazy and I for- 
got where I was. But I am safe at last ... I told 
j'ou, daddie, I wouldn't come back unless I made good 
— and I was determined not to be downed, to be pushed 
out — but to prove to you the real stuff you said wasn't 
in me was there ... It was so disheartening, but 



214 THE SUPREME TEST 

I gritted my teeth. I held on grimly. I tried so 
hard — you cannot have any idea of it. You would 
crj' if you knew to what your poor girl had been re- 
duced; working at anything she could find no mat- 
ter how menial — sweeping offices, scrubbing floors — 
because she must eat. Sometimes I wondered if it 
could be really me brought so low, and I cried for 
myself. I did — I couldn't help it. My hands, look 
at them! {Begins to weep.) 

DuQUET — {Soothingly.) There, there. Miss Hol- 
liday. 

Leavenworth — Her mind wanders. 

Flossie^ — {With trembling excitement.) The 
woman is insane. 

Davies — She is delirious from starvation. 

DuQUET — {Comfortingly J and chafing her hands.) 
There, there! 

Oressa — {Weeping feebly.) And I worked, and all 
through the long day I cheered myself with the prom- 
ise evening would surely come and it would be mine 
to do the thing that loomed so big through the weary 
hours, the thing that counted, that meant something 
more than the drudgery of getting bread — that meant 
honor and independence! . . . And then I went 
everywhere, first to one and then to another, and the 
city grew bigger and bigger every day. And they put 
me off with this and that excuse. They were so 
polite, so smiling and cold. Sometimes they wouldn't 
even look at what I had brought them, though it was 
steeped in my heart's blood. And they put me ofif, 
and I went down, down to the lowest depths of hell. 
You had hard shifts in your young days, but you can 



ACT II 215 

never understand, you can never know how desper- 
ate were these of mine. 

DuQUET — {Gently.) Yes, I know, child. 

Oressa — It's such a relief to pour it out from my 
soul. The horror of it has been gathering so long. 
... I couldn't tell you that night. I thought 
when I had made good, my success would absorb all 
else and you would be so pleased with it as to be will- 
ing to forget, and you would be proud of me at last, 
as you are of the boys. {Moves restlessly.) You 
would forget any mistake I had made in what so trium- 
phantly overshadowed it. But every day was harder, 
more wearing than the day before, and I thought I 
couldn't hold out until night. I would have to give 
it over, and every morning I braced myself anew for 
I must succeed. I must! Such a void here. Always 
so faint. 

DuQUET — Carroll, bring that plate of sandwiches, 
will you? {Leavenworth brings it from the table. 
Oressa springs up and snatches at the plate. A packet 
falls from her bosom heavily to the floor. Duquet 
picks it up and carries it to his writing-desk.) 

Oressa — {With a sharp laugh.) You're so generous! 
I'm a little hungry. {Tears and devours the sandwich 
like a famished dog. The men turn away their faces.) 

Oressa — {Eating ravenously.) Oh, they are so 
good! More, more! 

Leavenworth — {Aside to Duquet.) Shall we give 
her more? {Duquet shakes his head.) 

Leavenworth — Not now, my child. 

Oressa — Oh, but I have not had half enough, and 
you with such an abundance of food will never miss 



2i6 THE SUPREME TEST 

it. It is always the way! What little I can have 
only makes me more cravingly hungry. {Begins to 
feebly weep again.) I shall surely die of slow star- 
vation ! 

DuQUET — {To Flossie.) Speak to her. 

Flossie — I don't know anything about her. 

DuQUET — {Sternly.) It is enough you know she 
is ill and suffering. A woman understands how to 
console a woman. Please speak to her. {He rings 
the bell.) 

Flossie — {Advancing.) I am sorry, ma'am, that 
you are ill. It is so unfortunate to be ill among 
strangers. If you will tell us, ma'am, your address, 
we shall be only too glad to send you to your friends. 

Reenter Willetts. Duquet speaks to him aside. 

Oressa — {With a bewildered glance around.) My 
friends? Yes. I am not ill. I feel quite well and 
strong again. ( Tries to rise. Leavenworth pushes 
her back on the sofa.) 

Oressa — {Struggling faintly.) I will go at once. 

Leavenworth — Wait until you are stronger. 

Oressa — ^Yes, stronger. In a little while. {She 
sinks back, closing her eyes.) 

Willetts — {To Duquet.) Yes, sir. 

Duquet — ^At once, understand. 

Willetts — ^Yes, sir. 

Exit Willetts. 

Duquet — {To Flossie.) We will keep our guest 
to-night, 

Flossie — But, Armand, it is best you send the poor 
woman to the hospital. She is going to be very ill, 
I fear. We can 'phone for the ambulance. 



ACT II 217 

DuQUET — It Is too wild a night for her, in her con- 
dition, to be sent out when she will be comfortable 
with you. I have made arrangements with Willetts 
for his wife to come and remain. She has had ex- 
perience in nursing and she will take good care of Miss 
Hollida}^ You will not be put to any inconvenience. 
Exit Duquet. 

{The men talk together.) 

Reenter Duquet, clad in his long ulster and hat in 
hand. 

Flossie — Oh, Armand, where are you going? 

Duquet — ^To the hotel for the night. I will be 
back in the morning. 

Flossie — And leave me here with a stranger? It 
is not proper she stays. 

Duquet — It is entirely and quite proper so long as 
I go away. 

Flossie — {Pettishly.) Oh, no! 

{Duquet goes to his writing-desk, unlocks and care- 
fully puts the packet away in a drawer, and then re- 
locks the drawer returning the key to his pocket.) 

{The men talk together.) 

Oressa — {Muttering.) It has been the great dream 
I have cherished my life long, the paramount dream 
toward which my faculties have converged, toward 
which my every effort and power of mind have been 
directed. My studies, my reading, my educational 
strivings, were all to the one end. Step by step, a 
little nearer each day, each month, each year have 
I drawn to my goal. Who dares say I shall fail? 

Leavenworth — ^Who is this girl? 

Duquet — She is a girl of rare and preeminent gifts, 



2i8 THE SUPREME TEST 

who has come to the city to experience life, and owing 
to some unknown cause has fallen upon reverses. She 
is our sister artist. 

Leavenworth — She is a sister to John Chatterton, 
all right. 

DuQUET — Come, fellows, Mrs. Willetts will be 
here soon and we will go. 

Flossie — I will not consent to your going, Armand. 

MacLachlan — ^Aw, never mind, old man. I have 
an aunt who is my housekeeper 

Davies — {Eagerly^ and starting to the door.) I'll 
take the girl to my mother. She'll be glad to re- 
ceive her. I'll go out now and get a taxi if you'll 
just wait a minute! 

Duquet — Hold on! 

Oressa — {Opening her eyes.) What is all this? 
Oh, I must not be the cause of any trouble! I have 
done wrong in coming here to put anybody out. I 
will go straight away. I am all right again. {Strug- 
gles to sit up.) 

Duquet — {In a clear , distinct voice, pushing her 
gently hack, his hand on her brow.) You have in- 
trusted yourself to the keeping of your friends, who 
assume the responsibility for you whilst you are no 
longer able to exercise it for yourself. It is too wild 
a night for you to venture out in it again. You are 
welcome here so long as your need requires you to stay, 
and to-morrow when I return we shall see what ar- 
rangements we can make for your further comfort. 
{Goes to Flossie and puts both hands on her shoulders.) 
You are my guest and whilst you remain so, I expect 
you to be gracious to any other guest to whom I 



ACT II 219 

choose to extend my hospitality. She is a lady; but 
even if she were not, her dire extremity entitles her 
to the fullest claims upon our humanity. Now be 
my dear little sister, and let your kind heart speak in 
compassion for her. {Bends and kisses Flossie ten- 
derly.) 

Exeunt Leavenw'orthj MacLachlauj Davies. 

{Oressdj her cheeks flushed, eyes closed, mutters in- 
coherently. Duquet, folding his arms, stands over her, 
regarding her with a fixed, inscrutable look. The rain 
beats against the window.) 

Reenter Leavenworth, MacLachlan, Davies. 

( They are ready for the street and take their places 
just within the door. Duquet slowly moves back and 
takes up his hat. The men file out softly, and he 
follows. Flossie draws the portiere leading to Duquet' s 
private apartments. The heavy folds of velvet swing 
back to place as she disappears through them.) 

Curtain falls slowly. 



ACT III 

A parlor in Oressa Holliday's New York apartments. 
It is furnished with gilt couch and chairSj upholstered 
in dainty blue satin, blue silken hangings, a mahog- 
any table and a gilt table. A delicate-hued Wilton 
is on the floor, and in one corner is a small open 
mahogany cabinet containing bric-a-brac. In the center 
of the mahogany table is placed a cut-glass rose bowl 
filled with American Beauties. 

Time — Afternoon in March five months later. 

Virginia Holliday, wearing a well-fitting gown, is 
seated reading a letter. 

Scene I 

Virginia — I feel that this man is going to make 
us trouble, else why this attempt to force himself 
upon her attention at this late day? Now he peti- 
tions for an interview. This is the second letter he 
has sent her within two weeks, and more insistent. 
It is a matter of grave concern for the fact of his 
writing presages no good. And I have kept the news 
altogether from her. I cannot endure the thought of 
worrying her; she has had so much trouble and I 
would save her whatever annoyance it is within my 
power to spare her. What can he want of her after his 
own voluntary act of rejection and the lapse of over 

220 



ACT III 221 

three years? I fear I have done wrong in withhold- 
ing the truth when it is plainly inevitable it is his 
purpose to reopen relations with her. Perhaps by 
warning her we might be enabled to make our escape. 
But where? He has heard of her success and found 
out her address, and to whatever retreat we fled he 
could sooner or later discover us. Her fame makes 
retirement impossible for any length of time, (Rises 
and paces the floor in anxious thought. A light breaks 
over her face.) Ah, an idea has come to me! And 
if I am bold and prompt enough I can carry it success- 
fully off! I will bluff him down myself! He is a 
bully, but like all bullies is a coward and can be routed 
if one only has audacity sufficient to put over counter 
insolence. 

Enter Maid. 

Maid — Mr, Leavenworth. Exit Maid. 

Leavenworth — A fine March afternoon Miss 
Holliday. Is your sister at home? {Advances and 
shakes hands.) 

Virginia — Be seated, Mr. Leavenworth, while I 
call her. 

Exit Virffinia. 
Enter Oressa, wearing a trailing afternoon house gown. 

Oressa — This is a compliment, Mr. Leavenworth, 
for a man so busy as I know you to be to spend time 
to call on a lady in the afternoon. First, I have to 
thank you for the beautiful roses here which make 
my little parlor a bower of fragrance. 

Leavenworth — I am glad they please you. It was 
a toss-up in my mind whether or no, the afternoon be- 
ing so fine, you might be out, but I took the chance. 



222 THE SUPREME TEST 

Oh, I am not so busy as you think! I have intervals 
when I feel myself as aimless and irresponsible as a 
gentleman with unlimited leisure on his hands. {Seats 
himself and draws ojf his gloves.) At these intervals 
I become uncomfortably conscious of the utter fu- 
tility of my strivings. I wonder to what end I am 
working and denying myself. During these black 
moments the feeling that takes possession of me is 
of utter discouragement. It is the saddest sensation. 
You can't imagine! 

Oressa — ^That you, the strong and invincible, the 
self-sufficient, would succumb to the blues! Indeed I 
cannot. 

Leavenworth — ^They would properly be called 
blues. I suppose the real underlying cause is just plain 
dull, prosaic loneliness. 

Oressa — I am astonished. You, with all your 
friends and interests, to know what it means to be 
lonely ! 

Leavenworth — But I do know. When a chap 
reaches my age he has got to a point where his pro- 
fessional activities and all the friends in the world 
fail to fill the void. He wants a place all his own 
that he can call home, and he wants to feel that some 
one is there who has a special interest in his incom- 
ings and outgoings. More, he wants to know that 
others who are coming after him are going to benefit 
by his toil and sacrifices. By the way, don't let me 
forget that I have something here I wanted you par- 
ticularly to see. It is an article on your play in this 
week's New York Nation two and a half columns in 
length, and when a magazine of such varied interests 



ACT III 223 

covering well nigh the entire political, educational and 
literary fields allows that space to any one subject, it 
goes without saying the subject is worth while. 

Oressa — {Laughing.) Favorable, I hope? 

Leavenworth — Obviously so. This is a brief re- 
view of your play by that great, surly Scotch mastifE, 
MacLachlan, who is a perfect terror to the rest of 
us because of his harsh strictures, but you apparently 
have wholly succeeded in taming him. It is wonder- 
ful! {Points out to her the article.) 

Oressa — {Glancing over it.) Thank you so much 
for bringing it. I will digest it at my leisure. 

Leavenworth — {Laying the "Nation" on the ma- 
hogany table.) You will find it clean cut, straight to 
the point, as is characteristic of Mac, but underlying 
it all a fine vein of artistic appreciation. He has dis- 
covered the beauties in your production all right and 
neglected no opportunity to descant on them. 

Oressa — He has been unfailingly good to me from 
the first, and I am sure I am grateful to him for his 
kindly interest; but so has every one of you placed 
me under eternal obligations for a consideration in 
the last degree. 

Leavenworth — ^The fellows regard you quite in 
the light of a mascot. 

Oressa — I believe there is conspiracy among you 
to spoil me. I shouldn't be much surprised next to 
hear I was elected to the Parnassus Circle. Hon- 
orary member, I suppose. 

Leavenworth — {Laughing.) There is some talk 
of it. If such a consummation should be effected, you 
can place the responsibility for it upon that young ad- 



224 THE SUPREME TEST 

vocate of yours, Armand Duquet. He considers you 
his find first and therefore his special charge. He 
is promoting your interests at every opportunity. 

Oressa — My debt to him already is inestimable. 

Leavenworth — He is truly the most conscientious 
man to his sense of duty I ever knew, the most loyal 
to the obligations he assumes. {Warmly.) I do not 
exaggerate when I say his is one of the noblest and 
high spirited of characters, a nature innately chivalrous 
and generous. When a chap is in trouble Duquet's 
hand is always extended in aid. He would put him- 
self out to the fullest extent, give to his last dollar 
to one in need, and do it all with a delicacy so fine 
as to divest the act of any trace of ostentation or 
charity. Not only is he high principled in his deal- 
ings with men, he is sincere and pure minded in his 
relations with women. So sensitive is his code of honor 
that he would consider it in the light of a degradation 
to his personal pride and self-respect to think ill of 
any woman, least of all to act basely toward her. 

Oressa — ^What a model husband he will make for 
some lucky girl! 

Leavenworth — His sister tells me there is a girl, 
beautiful and accomplished, whose father's estate ad- 
joins theirs, of whom he has been very fond from 
childhood days. 

Oressa — ^Ah! You are beginning to interest me 
very much! 

Leavenworth — Whether they will marry or not 
remains to be demonstrated. Yet it is very likely they 
will, for these Southerners are clannish to the ex- 
treme, and hold fast to the old traditions of feminine 



ACT III 225 

dependence and high breeding, and they incline strongly 
to the tenderly reared, sheltered women of their own 
part of the country. Charming as is his personality and 
eagerly as his presence would be welcomed by women 
of exclusive circles here, he has not mingled much in 
society, for his heart has been in his work. He has 
been so entirely engrossed with that as to have little 
time to spare outside. He has not been thinking of 
women in the concrete so much as of the airy crea- 
tions of his own brain. 

Oressa — He has shaped his own ideal and is con- 
tent with that. 

Leavenworth — {Smiling.) Well, he is only 
thirty-one years old, Miss Holliday, and a chap hasn't 
exhausted all his possibilities at that age, and I can 
safely predict that some day he will awaken to the 
fact that the evolutions of his fertile and romantic 
fancy, lovely and charming as they may be, are power- 
less to longer satisfy him. Then he will yearn for a! 
live girl. 

Oressa — How funny that sounds! Are all girls 
live? 

Leavenworth — I have found them so. • 

Oressa — {Laughing nervously.) But it sounds so 
funny. 

Leavenworth — Well, I am an outspoken fellow. 
Now, Miss Holliday, you are a woman of the world, 
and the knowledge you gained there has shown you that 
all men are not possessed of the soul of Armand Du- 
quet. Your experience of three years on the seamy 
side of life has doubtless given some unpleasant jolts 
to your ideals of manhood, shattered many cherished 



226 THE SUPREME TEST 

illusions, in short, proved to you that many men are 
lacking altogether in any such equipment as white 
wings. 

Oressa — But that they are plentifully supplied with 
horns instead. 

Leavenworth — Exactly. Some longer and more 
pointed than others. When a man has lived a good 
long while in this world, in round numbers let us 
say forty years, he has had opportunity, if he is of the 
mind, to sample pretty freely the various brands of 
amusement — dissipation, frivolity and general fool- 
ishness — offered to his experimentation. Some chaps 
of the M^iting fraternity think they must not only 
drink deeply of the cup of life, but drain it to its 
utter dregs in order to write with comprehensive power 
in a big elemental way. Again, a young fellow just 
starting over the threshold, stirred by the everlasting 
curiosity that in a good sense is the inspiring motive 
of all knowledge, is eager to learn what it contains. 
He wants to know what evil is like and is irresistibly 
drawn toward it because that which is tabooed is al- 
ways more attractive than what is free and open. When 
I was in college I was no better or worse than the 
average run of pampered young puppies indulged in 
a too generous allowance by injudicious and doting 
fathers ; when I went abroad to complete my education 
intellectually and morally, I found on the continent 
that restraint was sneered at, virtue held as of slight 
importance and conduct that in our good. Puritanical 
atmosphere was looked upon as downright scandal, 
was regarded as quite a matter of course. Chaps with 
money who wanted to enjoy the domestic comforts to 



ACT III 227 

which they were accustomed at home, set up on a lim- 
ited scale with a house-keeper. I soon entered into 
a business transaction with one of these young house- 
keeper's mothers, who exhibited the customary finan- 
cial acumen. I do not claim that I was in love with 
this girl, as a chap would be with the woman he in- 
tended choosing for a wife, but she was amiable and 
adaptable and I grew fond of her, and when the three 
years stipulated by the compact was at an end, I did 
not send her away empty handed. My conscience 
absolves me of any injustice. I dealt with absolute 
fairness by her; it was from first to last a straight 
transaction. As for myself, I can say I was a steadier, 
more temperate youth for that experience. It is not 
pleasant for a man to dig back fifteen years or more 
into his past and make confession of it to the woman 
he is desirous of winning. But I tell you this. Miss 
Holliday, because I think it is right a chap should let 
her know of his acts, even if that knowledge is likely 
to injure his case. He should be honest with her and 
open; that is the part of square dealing. Such is 
my code of honor. And I can say with a clear con- 
science that since that time I have been a reasonably 
decent fellow. 

Oressa — ^Am I to understand that you are making 
me a proposal of marriage? 

Leavenworth — ^You are to understand exactly 
that. Do you think you could learn to care a little 
for a chap who admits he has been no saint, but who 
nevertheless will make you the deuce of a fine husband 
and good family man? 

Oressa — {Rising.) I do not expect you to be a 



228 THE SUPREME TEST 

saint, it is sufficient that you are a man with a sterling 
sense of honor. 

Leavenworth — Good! I see you are woman of 
the world enough to have gained discernment to ap- 
preciate the temptations to which a man's nature makes 
him liable. 

Oressa — I do not care what has been your past 
before I ever knew you; it is only the present with 
which any woman has a right to be concerned. 

Leavenworth — And I promise you, you will have 
no occasion to find fault with that present or the fu- 
ture that is on the way if you become my wife. Come, 
what are you going to say to me? 

Oressa — {Moving restlessly about the room.) Is 
it because of my ability to write that you have been 
drawn toward me? 

Leavenworth — I admire you for that ability as 
any man naturally admires the efficiency of a gifted 
woman that enables her to make a notable achievement, 
and I am confident you will do me credit, I should 
be more than proud of you. I both can and shall 
esteem it a privilege to help you to attain to a fuller 
consummation of your genius. And it will be my 
pleasure to convert my larger experience to your serv- 
ice. {Smilinff.) You are jealously apprehensive lest 
the woman be overlooked for the bluestocking. But 
do not fear! You have other means than the in- 
tellectual with which to make yourself felt. I have 
grown to love you for your own pretty little feminine 
airs unlike those of any one else, for the turn of your 
head, the grace of your movements, for the music of 
your voice, the soft ripple of that laugh, — in short, 



ACT III 229 

just for your personal little self. A woman like you, 
so brilliant and attractive, without any near relatives, 
ought not to stand alone and unprotected in the world. 
Now, won't you consent to give me a trial so that 
I can prove that I can take good care of you? 

Oressa — {Pausing in her walk and looking at him 
over her shoulder.) I am deeply appreciative of the 
honor you have done me in making this offer. But 
it has come so unexpectedly I cannot give an answer 
on the minute. I must have a little time for reflec- 
tion. It wouldn't be fair to either of us if I an- 
swered without consideration. 

Leavenworth — {With an engaging smile.) 
Aren't you going to give me just a teenty-tawnty ray 
of hope? {Comes up behind her.) Are you going 
to send me away in utter suspense? 

Oressa — Perhaps it would not be to your eventual 
good that I give you hope. 

Leavenworth — Nonsense, when it is within your 
power to make me the happiest of men ! You play with 
me, child. But then you are like the rest of your 
sex, a tantalizing little coquette who makes herself 
more adorable by holding off. 

Oressa — You would not say that if you under- 
stood me. I am one of the most serious of women. 

Leavenworth — {Taking her hand.) Then be se- 
rious in your determination to accept me. Is there 
any one else? 

Oressa — I have learned of none other. 

Leavenworth — Ah, then I can take courage! 
( Takes up his hat. ) Every minute whilst I am gone 
I am going to give you absent treatment so that 



230 THE SUPREME TEST 

you will have ready a favorable answer for me on my 
return. {Coaxingly.) Won't you let me kiss you just 
once? 

Oressa — {Drawing away.) Certainly not. I have 
not made any decision yet, remember. 

Leavenworth — Right. 

Exit. 

Oressa — I have made up my mind to be happy. 
It is my right to reach up and take what hangs within 
my grasp. What are money and independence and 
fame without love ? Empty, cold and valueless, a mock- 
ery to a starving spirit. I will put the past behind 
me as though it had never been. {Paces the floor 
with agitation.) I will forswear myself, repudiate 
all! I will be happy. 

Enter Duquet. 

{He stands silent regarding her. As she turns in 
her walk she perceives him.) 

Scene II 

Duquet — {Bowing low.) Why are you so per- 
turbed ? 

Oressa — {With a quivering smile.) Perturbed? 
Oh, no! I am just acting out a scene in the new play 
I am devising. 

Duquet — It must be a strenuous one for it is 
causing you some mental disturbance, I reckon. Speak- 
ing of plays reminds me there is a critique of your 
last in 

Oressa — {Archly.) The Nation. 

Duquet — No; it is to be in the coming North 
American Review and it is by Davies. 



ACT III 231 

Oressa — ^You men are determined the world shall 
hear of me. The Nation is by MacLachlan. Mr. 
Leavenworth came to bring it to me. It is there on 
the table. 

DuQUET — {Laying down his hat.) Ah! Good 
stufE? I met him on the steps as I was coming up. 

Oressa — Whenever he hears of anything concern- 
ing my work he hastens with it to me. He is, I be- 
lieve, as proud of any commendation accorded me as 
though it were given himself. 

DuQUET — Staunch old Levvy! Though whimsi- 
cal, making jest of serious things, which he thinks is 
the mark of a man of the world, or else propounding 
revolutionary doctrines from sheer perversity to con- 
tradict his hearers, he has the tenderest of feelings and 
is the best friend man or woman ever had. 

Oressa — Be moderate. He has been sounding your 
praises and if you now begin on the same tack I shall 
certainly think there is a conspiracy between you to 
crack yourselves up. 

DuQUET — Even at that risk I cannot extol Carroll 
beyond his desert. He is my closest friend. Miss 
Oressa, and I look up to him as to an elder brother. 
He is, in fact, as dear to me as an elder brother 
would have been if I had been granted such a bless- 
ing. From the beginning of my meeting him here in 
New York when I was but twenty-four he took me 
under his protection, gave me invaluable suggestions, 
and introduced me to the literary coterie. I found 
myself in the midst of the brilliant wits and intel- 
lectuals gathered from every part of the country, be- 
fore I had won any legitimate claim to be there at all. 



232 THE SUPREME TEST 

Oressa — ^You literary men are so united, so loyal 
to one another's interests. It is beautiful! 

DuQUET — You think so? It's the free masonry of 
art.' But enough of shop. I have brought something 
here personal to myself. {Puts his hand in his breast 
pocket.) I have told you about my Virginia home 
and I thought perhaps you might like to see a repre- 
sentation of it. 

Oressa — I am more than curious. 

DuQUET — Well then. {Sits down beside her on the 
tete and shows her a photograph.) 

Oressa — {With enthusiasm.) Oh, what a splen- 
did mansion ! And with what an air of stability and 
dignity those spacious verandas and solidly support- 
ing pillars have invested it! {Holds the photograph 
from her and looks at it admiringly.) Do you know, 
Mr. Duquet, it is quite as my fancy had conceived it? 
I can easily portray the majestic interior, the lofty 
rooms with their massive furniture, so cool, so quiet, 
so elegant, emanating an atmosphere of age and stately 
conservatism. 

Duquet — It is pretty nearly a hundred years old. 

Oressa — ^A rare privilege indeed to dwell in a home 
so hallowed by association and of such picturesque 
interest! What wonder your mind was filled with 
beautiful images and visions when your days were 
spent in those halls of romance? I can also picture 
the extensive park with the luxuriant trees environ- 
ing it. I like to compare your youth as it must have 
glided so serenely along, to a river moving with a 
grace soft and smooth and free between banks of bend- 
ing branches and thickly clustering foliage, whose 



ACT III 233 

shadows made a cool retreat, the blue dome flecked 
with fleecy white, curving in benediction from above! 
Or, I like to think of your young life in its onward 
flow as resembling the rich, harmonious rhythm of a 
noble song! Is that extravagant ? 

DuQUET — {Smiling.) If you are prodigal with 
your fanciful similitudes, I assure you it is not un- 
pleasing, 

Oressa — {Softly and contemplatively.) I can see 
you in the long ago when you were the merest lad, 
slight and boyish of form, your abstracted gaze fixed 
in revery whilst your spirit, free, roamed far away 
over aerial castles. The days were just a succession 
of witching wonders and surprises and delights like the 
novel and extraordinary happenings in fairies' abodes, 
for you had not awakened to realities' meaning. You 
were living instead in the enchanted land of illusions. 
You were content to love the blue sky with the chang- 
ing shapes, the iridescent colors of its clouds; you dis- 
covered a rapture in the bewildering and gorgeous 
moods Nature exhibited, for even commonplace ob- 
jects after passing through the alembic of your poet's 
soul would have been glorified. How much greater 
the inspiration you derived from Nature in her 
perfect forms! The most ordinary incidents of life 
in the crucible of your imagination would have 
been transmuted into golden romance. How much 
greater the inspiration from conditions that were ab- 
solutely ideal! {More absently and laughing low.) 
I can see you a little later, a slender stripling when to 
childhood's sumptuous creative power that converted 
the every day world into a domain of magic, came also 



234 THE SUPREME TEST 

that of reflection. Your brooding thoughts turned 
on the great mystery of things and as you mused, your 
astonishment and curiosity grew apace. You were be- 
coming conscious of your own importance as a part 
of this strange and inexplicable scheme and realized 
that responsibility was devolving upon you. And 
this awakening was not unbecoming to you as also 
were not dark eyes and dark hair ever growing darker. 
(She laughs low and caressingly.) We could not say 
that, like Byron you were dashing, for you were far 
too dreamy for that. But being good to look upon and 
with manners gracious, it is certain you did not lack 
effectiveness. After a while in order to receive the 
necessary experience, of which as yet you were igno- 
rant, you go away to mingle with many others in dis- 
tant scenes, but through these years of study and 
social intercourse your exaltation of soul, your en- 
thusiasms, you preserved as precious possessions. Nor 
did you let go of your high ideal of service to be ren- 
dered to the world. Noblesse Oblige! Now, in due 
course of time, this fair promise was brought to pass, 
these stages of development culminated in fulfilment, 
for, in short, the seeds of all these thoughts, these re- 
flections, these passions for beauty and truth, burst 
into blossom and gave forth rich perfume; and the 
world rejoices in the poet and dramatist, Armand Du- 
quet. {Laughs musically and claps her hands glee- 
fully.) 

DuQUET — {Knitting his brows in humorous per- 
plexity.) You sibyl, one moment, you talk to me 
as from the garnered experience of a hundred years; 
the next you are a gay mischievous girl, and I am 



ACT III 235 

half inclined to believe that under cover of praise you 
are ridiculing me! 

Oressa — Not for a moment. But let me tell you 
this. What has most impressed me about your past 
life is that the conditions surrounding you from the 
beginning have been in every way favorable to the 
fullest bringing forth of your peculiar gifts. It isn't 
every boy who can muse and dream in a place that 
retains the atmosphere of an oriental magician's palace 
with dusky forms flitting about ! I suppose your people 
once had any number of slaves? 

DuQUET — In the old days, yes. My grandfather 
was one of the biggest plantation owners of the South. 
Though my father was a mere boy when the Civil War 
broke out he enlisted at once in the Confederate ranks 
and rose by successive steps until at the end of the 
struggle he had won the title of colonel. He was 
killed about four years ago from a fall from his horse. 

Oressa — Then you became the head of the family? 

DuQUET — ^That responsibility descended to me. I 
wish, Miss Oressa, you might meet my mother. You 
could not help loving her. 

Oressa — I should stand in such awe of her because 
I am sure she is a grande dame. 

DuQUET — But so gracious and serene. You two 
would, I am sure, become very fond of one another. 
Why cannot you come and make us a visit? 

Oressa — Oh, I couldn't think of such a thing! It 
wouldn't do. 

DuQUET — Will you tell me why? 

Oressa — ^Young ladies don't visit young men at 
their homes when unacquainted with the family. It 



236 THE SUPREME TEST 

wouldn't be proper. 

DuQUET — If it were in order to become acquainted, 
how then? 

Oressa — {Shaking her head.) It isn't considered 
good form. 

DuQUET — Oh, bother form! A girl like you can 
afford to dispense with the formalities ordinary wo- 
men have to observe, 

Oressa — ^You mean because I have a reputation as 
a literary woman I am to be accounted a Bohemian ? 

DuQUET — I mean you can afford to dispense with 
formalities because you are both superior and rare 
and by reason of that are lifted clear of the boun- 
daries that restrict commonplace people. If my mother 
should write you she was desirous of becoming ac- 
quainted with you and should extend an invitation for 
you to come, I can't see why you should refuse it. 

Oressa — But she will not extend it. 

DuQUET — Yes, she will if I ask her. 

Oressa — ^You are very unconventional. Do you 
know that, Mr. Duquet? 

DuQUET — Don't say Mr. Duquet. Say Armand. 
Don't you think our friendship has been sufficiently 
tested to venture on a little familiarity? 

Oressa — ^Yours has, most certainly. 

Duquet — Oh, don't talk of that. 

Oressa — I can't help talking of it when I realize 
so fully that whatever I have achieved I owe to you. 

Duquet — And I rejoin you owe it to your gifts. 

Oressa — ^They would not have availed me, if it had 
not been for you, for I was powerless to get them 
recognized. 



ACT III 237 

DuQUET — Sooner or later they would have made 
themselves felt and demanded recognition. {Lightly.) 
Power, like murder, you know, will out. 

Oressa — {Shaking her head.) I thought so once, 
but I learned from bitter experience that the highest 
work is the most difficult of any work to win its way 
to public notice and favor. I should have remained 
either a discouraged woman, my heart eaten out with 
the disappointment of futile striving, of deferred hope 
and of neglect, or would have died from actual want 
and despair, if it had not been for you. 

You succored me when I was starving; you took 
my play and gained the ear of the managers; you put 
it in rehearsal and saw to its presentation, giving to 
it the same conscientious and exacting care you would 
have given to your own. Oh, I know the claim you 
have on .my gratitude ! 

DuQUET — {Playfully.) Perhaps I shall reveal my- 
self as thoroughly mercenary and ask an unwarrantable 
compensation for the wonderful things you say I have 
done for you. 

Oressa — Surely, could there be any compensation 
which I should hesitate to render? 

DuQUET — {Gravely.) Even to the forfeit of your- 
self? 

Oressa — ^Would it be a forfeit? 

DuQUET — That is as you look at it. 

Oressa — {In an agitated voice.) Oh, I am uncer- 
tain of you and of myself! You must not say another 
word! {Rises.) 

DuQUET — {Gently.) But yes. {Takes her hand.) 
Won't you remain here just a moment beside me and 



238 THE SUPREME TEST 

let me talk with you a little? {Bends his head low 
over her hand.) You are very elusive, Oressa. I have 
been impressed by a sense of aloofness, of reserve in 
you from the beginning of my association following that 
night you came to me. I felt the presence of a spiritual 
barrier which you interposed between yourself and me, 
and if I ever tried to advance beyond a certain point 
you retreated. You have kept that distance, discour- 
aging any attempt on my part to draw nearer to you. 
Is it that you doubt me, or is it that you distrust men 
in general? 

Oressa-— Oh, no, no! I do not doubt you! 

DuQUET — It has been my wish to be your friend. 

Oressa — ^And I so consider you. 

DuQUET — But you do not give me your full con- 
fidence. That is the proof of friendship and that you 
trust me. You have seen how I was inclining toward 
you, growing to love you 

Oressa — {With affitation.) But love is the end 
of friendship. 

DuQUET — {Ardently.) Dear child, it is the begin- 
ning of loyalty the sweetest, of devotion to one an- 
other's service the most consummate. . . . They say 
women know these things by intuition, but men grope 
their way to the knowledge. The mystery of it has 
been slow unfolding itself and the understanding so 
long coming has thoroughly upset me. If I try to 
concentrate my mind on work, it is your fair face I 
see on the page. I am restless, distracted. Even in 
the midst of my friends I am depressed, without inter- 
est in their conversation or concerns. Other women, 
however charming they may be, do not divert me. I 



ACT III 239 

am consumed with longing to see you, and when I 
cannot be with you, to dwell in fancy with you. I walk 
my room, living over and over every word you have 
spoken, beholding from the photograph of my memory 
the play of expression over your features, the look of 
your speaking eyes. My thoughts when I am alone are 
occupied with you to the exclusion of everything else. 
I go to my rest, there to think of you where there is 
no interruption. I fall asleep to dream of you. 

And in the silent hours when I awaken I put out my 
passionate arms and pray that you might be by my 
side, that in them I could enfold you close, close on my 
heart and seal your pure lips with my kisses! Oh, 
my dear, my sweet, my innocent lambkin, you must not 
be angry with me for telling you this, for this is love 
and what love means. . . . It is a feverish intoxication, 
a delirious ecstasy, a tyranny, a madness where hope 
and yearning desire alternate with suspense and des- 
pair! If I had ever felt this before, it would not 
come with such force. {In an appealing voice.) Oh, 
Oxessa, I am so hard hit! (Rises abruptly and paces 
the floor.) 

Oressa — And have you never cared for a girl 
before? 

DuQUET — Not seriously — never like this! (Puts 
his hand to his forehead.) It is so strange, so over- 
whelming! I have fancied, — admired them, — some at 
a distance to whom I have never spoken. For a brief 
time I have been attracted by this one, my pulses lightly 
stirred by the beauty, the grace of that one because 
external charms fail not in their appeal. From boy- 
hood my labor of artistry and of joy has been in ere- 



240 THE SUPREME TEST 

ating fair and lovely beings, — dream girls, — pure as 
cold. But, in my most ardent imagination, I little 
expected that the reality would so surpass my vision, 
for it was Venus who gave warm, throbbing life to 
my ideal. And you who are this Galatea, you have 
gripped my very soul and I suffer the torments of the 
damned in the suspense of not knowing whether I am 
to master, to obtain you as my own! Are you going 
to have some pity? {Puts his handj with a strong, 
convulsive movement, on her shoulder.) 

Oressa — You are too precipitate, you have not 
given me time to learn my own mind. 

DuQUET — {Hoarsely.) Time? Is that an excuse 
to put me off, to get away from the issue? Do not 
play with me! {Puts both shaking hands on her 
shoulders.) It will not be well, it will not be well! 

Oressa — {Gently.) Fiery, extravagant boy! Do 
you think it is in me to so meanly recompense all your 
goodness to me by trifling with your affections ? 

Duquet — {In an intense voice.) I want no recom- 
pense, I want a free gift! 

Oressa — I ask you to be patient! 

Duquet — I am a hot-headed fool and I beg your 
pardon. In your virgin innocence, of course you have 
not as yet experienced the dominating mastery of this 
great passion, been drawn and held in the thrall of 
its tyrannous absorption! Why should I expect it? 
And still, being a woman, you must in your thoughts 
have speculated on it, have imagined, wondered what 
it might be like. So let me teach it to you. You are 
not unwilling? 

Oressa — Do not urge me any further. Now go 



ACT III 241 

away. 

DuQUET — I am pleading my happiness, Oressa; I 
am prajdng you to grant me the greatest boon in the 
gift of your sex. You are a woman with a belief in 
the ultimate regeneration of man, and convinced that 
the efforts of every individual, however small, help 
toward that end; your intellectual standards are of 
the very highest, nothing less than the best will satisfy 
you; you have a purpose in all that you do, and your 
Art is the servant of that purpose. Do you know that 
in this world of tragic misfits it happens just once in 
a hundred years that two people of the same ideals, 
the same aims, meet and come together? And the 
result of a union like that is a happiness that is 
imm.ortal, for happiness founded on such affinities defies 
the vicissitudes of life and time. 

I want you, my darling, not only because of your 
physical self, — the woman in you that all men love, — 
but because each of us is a complement to the other, 
and hand in hand we two together will be able to attain 
to the highest consummation of our powers. 

Oressa — My friend, by the memory of your gen- 
erous past to me, I entreat you not to plead this case 
any further. 

DuQUET — {Taking up his hat.) I am a selfish 
brute, and I humbly crave your indulgence. 

Oressa — {Earnestly.) But before you go, I want 
you to know that in those three years I lived in this 
city unprotected and forlorn, amidst difficulties well- 
nigh unendurable, I was absolutely honest. I want 
you, if the occasion should any time come when you 
might think harshly of me, to remember that. 



242 THE SUPREME TEST 

DuQUET — Of course, I know it. Why do you 
need to impress such a fact upon my memory? It goes 
without saying that however great might be the mis- 
eries, the temptations besetting you, you would be true 
to yourself. What sort of a fellow would I be to love 
you and not have implicit faith in you? {Bends down 
and kisses her hand. Raises his eyes with a supplicating 
look. In an eloquent voice.) Be generous to me, 
Oressa. 

Exit Duquet. 

{Oressa stands motionlesSj in deep thought. Takes 
up the photograph, gazes at it long and earnestly. Lays 
it back on the table. Makes several turns around the 
room. Sits down, supporting her chin on her hand.) 

Enter Flossie Duquet, in a smart calling gown, wear- 
ing a fur coat of blended squirrel, trimmed with 
ermine, a chic hat of squirrel, edged with ermine, a 
white ermine boa and carrying an ermine muff. 



Scene III 

Flossie — Miss Holliday, I believe? 

Oressa — {Lifting her head.) Yes. 

Flossie — {Advancing.) I don't know as you re- 
member me, ma'am. I am Miss Flossie Duquet. You 
came one night late, when you were ill, to my brother's 
apartments and fainted there, ma'am, and were quite 
delirious afterwards. 

Oressa — {Rising.) Yes, indeed, I remember you 
and the occasion. {Puts out her hand.) 

Flossie — {With a little staccato shake from a 



ACT III 243 

raised turht.) I just passed him going from here, 
but he was walking with his head down, as he most 
always does, and as I was in the Cadillac, he did not 
see me and I am right glad of it. 

Oressa — ^That is odd you should be glad not to have 
your brother recognize you. {Courteously.) Won't 
you be seated. Miss Duquet? 

Flossie — I might as well, I suppose. {Sinks in a 
chair, with a deep sigh.) Well, it is not so odd, after 
all, when I tell you, ma'am, he has been urging me 
ever so long to come and make a call on you. And I 
have kept putting it off on one excuse and another and 
I don't want him to know now that I have come at 
last, because he will ask me what was said and done, 
and whether my call was pleasant, and I am really 
afraid it won't be pleasant, ma'am. 

Oressa — {Smiling.) — I will do my part toward 
having it so. Why can't it be pleasant? Why not 
you and I become good friends? 

Flossie — {Shaking her head.) I fear that is not 
possible. ... I think the world of him, ma'am. He's 
the best brother a girl ever had — always considering 
my comfort and my pleasure. And he will buy any- 
thing I ask for, he is that indulgent. He gave me this 
fur coat and this set of ermine and they cost a right 
smart sum of money, ma'am. He is just that good 
to us all — to my mother, to my younger sisters, of 
whom one is twelve and one fourteen. He takes the 
care of business off my mother's shoulders. She asks 
his advice on every difficult matter, and he is always 
so helpful. He sees to my sisters' education and 
selects the seminaries they attend, and he will take them 



244 THE SUPREME TEST 

abroad, as he did me when I came out. We just 
couldn't get along without him, for we depend on 
him for everything. 

He is an ideal big brother, never scolding one or 
flying into a passion, but patient and kind whatever 
the provocation, and I don't want him annoyed more 
than is necessary. You mustn't tell him I came here. 
Will you, ma'am? 

Oressa — If you do not desire it; certainly not. 

Flossie — I am sorry, you know, to say anything un- 
pleasant to you in your own home, that is likely to 
grieve or offend you, ma'am. Please believe me, I 
didn't come here to insult or to affront you. That 
is far from my thoughts. I came from a motive of 
strict necessity. For a long time past I am sure he 
has been thinking seriously about you and I really 
fear he has got to that point he is intending to make 
you a proposal, ma'am, of marriage. I really fear so. 
And I have come here to ask you in the event he does, 
to refuse him. 

Oressa — {Gently.) You evidently consider that 
in the event he did make me a proposal of marriage and 
I accepted it, it would be a great misfortune to you. 

Flossie — ^To us all, ma'am. 

Oressa — ^Will you tell me quite frankly why y^u 
would so consider it? 

Flossie — Oh, ma'am, I am so relieved you are mild! 
For people to become red in the face and talk loud is 
so vulgar, and I dread scenes above everything! 

Oressa — {Smiling.) Nothing is gained by getting 
angry in a case of this sort. It is better we talk quietly 
and unreservedly together in order to get one an- 



ACT III 245 

other's point of view and therefore to understand one 
another better. 

Flossie — I am beginning to like you already, ma'am. 
You are so different from what I thought. 

Oressa — ^And now will you tell me what objections 
you have to me ? Is it because I am a writing woman ? 

Flossie — Partly that. We are very conservative 
where I come from, ma'am, you would say old-fash- 
ioned, and we do not approve of the idea of women 
going outside earning their livings in offices and such 
places, mixing in men's affairs, trying to vote, making 
themselves public in any way and becoming emanci- 
pated. I have heard and I can see that you are right 
clever and self-reliant. Still I am sure my mother 
would be most strongly antagonistic to you just on 
account of your being so independent and public. 
Then, Miss Holliday, I made up my mind at once, 
that night you came to my brother in such extremity, 
you could not be a lady for ladies do not get in predica- 
ments of that sort. 

Oressa — Might it not be possible a lady could 
experience misfortune? Do you not think I must have 
come from a family of some substantiality in order 
to have received a fair education? 

Flossie — {Shaking her head.) But your family 
could not be select, ma'am, or they would have been 
more choice of you. We are one of the oldest families 
of the South and Armand is our head and we expect 
him, of course, to marry a girl of distinguished birth, 
of high breeding, one who has been exclusive in her 
up-bringing. It would break my mother's heart if 
he entered into a mesalliance. No one seems to know 



246 THE SUPREME TEST 

anything really definite about your past, what has been 
your origin or your rearing. 

Oressa — Do you not think that people themselves 
are an exemplification of their rearing? 

Flossie — I suppose they are. But, oh, dear, there is 
so much to complicate things ! I do wish it might have 
been different. But we can't get away from the ideas 
to which we have been brought up. We are bound 
down to them. You see how it is, ma'am? 

Oressa — ^Yes, I quite see how it is. 

Flossie — ^And you don't blame me ? 

Oressa — ^Why, no! 

Flossie — It is lovely of you to be so reasonable. 
And you are sure you are not angry? 

Oressa — I am only very sorry. I should have liked 
so much to have had you for my little friend. 

Flossie — ^And I should love to be your friend if it 
were not for the fear of being your sister-in-law. 

Oressa — I have had so few girl friends in my life, 
and here I am without any. It is hard for a woman 
to be deprived of the companionship of her own sex. 

Flossie — It is terrible. Oh, I am so sorry for you ! 

Oressa — Do you know, you are very artless and 
innocent? And you look so girlish and pretty with 
those pure white furs. {Puts her hand on her shoul- 
der.) 

Flossie — {Delightedly.) Do I? {Holds out her 
muff.) Just feel, Miss Holliday, how soft and rich 
it is! 

Oressa — {Holding the muff to her cheek.) It is 
beautiful! This is royalty's fur! 

Flossie — ^And the dear little black tails — aren't they 



ACT III 247 

cute? To think of the delicate pretty creatures just 
living for me, ma'am ! I am so glad you admire them ! 

Oressa — {Smoothing the fur.) Who could help it? 

Flossie — {Impulsively taking the scarf from her 
neck.) And now I want you to have them. 

Oressa — Oh, no, no, no! I couldn't think of such 
a thing! 

Flossie — {Pressing them on her.) I shall be of- 
fended if you refuse me. 

Oressa — Impulsive child! Why, I can't take your 
furs! 

Flossie — Oh, yes, but you will ! It is a downright 
slight to reject a gift, and I shall be right offended. 
It has become so late in the season and I cannot wear 
them, you know, in the South. They will only be laid 
away in moth balls. {In sweet entreaty.) Please, 
please ! ( Oressa turns her head and breaks into a deep 
sob.) 

Flossie — {Dropping the furs and throwing her arms 
around Oressa s neck.) I am ashamed to have grieved 
you so. Forgive me! 

Oressa — It is nothing, nothing! 

Flossie — Oh, I hate myself for an odious creature! 
Reenter Maidj followed by Almon Merritt. 

Maid — A gentleman for you. Miss Holliday. 

Flossie — I must go now. You have been very nice 
and patient, ma'am. Good-by! Exit Flossie. 

Scene IV 

Oressa — {Recoiling.) Almon Merritt ! What are 
you doing here? 



248 THE SUPREME TEST 

Merritt — {With a conciliatory smile.) I fear you 
are not agreeably surprised, but I hope you will be more 
reconciled to my presence when you learn my errand. 
First let me say I have come to offer my congratulations 
on your good fortune. You have certainly made a 
wonderful hit with the public. I might have known 
it was in you, though, to do some big thing. I have 
written you twice, once for the purpose of conveying my 
felicitations and yesterday asking for an appointment. 
As I got no response to either, I took silence for con- 
sent. 

Oressa — I have not received any letters from you 
and if I had I should have declined giving a man ad- 
mittance into my house who has proved himself utterly 
lacking in principle and honor. 

Merritt — {In slow, propitiatory accents and always 
speaking low.) I don't blame you for condemning and 
resenting my conduct. I admit that I treated you 
abominably and that I deserve all the reproaches you 
see fit to heap upon me. 

Oressa — {Coldly.) It is not my intention to heap 
reproaches upon you. It would be only a waste of 
my time to accuse or to upbraid one from whom I am 
completely alienated. My wish is to be spared any 
dealings with you whatsoever, and I ask you to leave 
here at once. 

Merritt — ^Wait a little, first, and give me a chance 
to explain myself. 

Oressa — ^There is no explanation possible. You 
showed yourself a knave, deliberately tricking and de- 
ceiving me and casting me aside without mercy when 
you found a newer fancy. 



ACT III 249 

Merritt — {Insistently.) Give me a chance to tell 
you what I purpose for you. 

Oressa — It is not of the slightest significance what 
you purpose for me. I do not want to reopen any rela- 
tions with you or treat with you a moment. I only 
ask you to take yourself away. 

Merritt — I say, I don't blame you for being spunky, 
with the provocation I gave you. I guess Fate evens 
up things once and awhile. At any rate, I got my 
reward for my usage of you. I couldn't get along with 
that woman on any terms. She was a termagant, a 
she-devil, 

Oressa — (Icily.) I am not interested in your do- 
mestic infelicities. 

Merritt — I wouldn't expect you to be if they had 
not ended in an opening for you and me again and 
an opportunity for us to settle our differences. To be 
plain, I got a divorce from her, Oressa, and I am a 
free man once more, and I have come back to you. 

Oressa — If that is your errand here, it is quite fu- 
tile. You have proved yourself a scoundrel and I 
wouldn't take you back if you were the last man 
on earth. 

Merritt — {Sulkily.) Oh, come, now! Haven't 
you lashed me enough, when I tell you I am willing 
to make you reparation, to square it all up ? 

Oressa — That time has long passed. 

Merritt — ^You are talking just for the sake of 
showing your resentment for the injuries you received 
at my hands, and I have already acknowledged my 
culpability. So what's the use of keeping up this hos- 
tile attitude? Let us get down to business and adjust 



250 THE SUPREME TEST 

these difficulties. Barring my offense to you, I am 
not the worst fellow in the world; I am neither idle 
nor dissolute, only a little over-susceptible where women 
are concerned. Now I make you a straight offer: I 
will marry you and treat you to the very best of my 
ability. Come, what do you say? 

Oressa — {In a ringing voice.) I say, I decline 
that offer unconditionally. 

Merritt — {With astonishment.) You decline it? 

Oressa — ^There is no misery on earth that a woman 
could be called upon to bear equal to the misery of 
being tied for life to a man in whom she feels not the 
slightest confidence and for whom she has lost the last 
vestige of respect! 

When I was obscure, almost penniless, you consid- 
ered me of the least importance; you valued my wo- 
manhood so lightly, you took so little thought of my 
pride, you were so indifferent to my feelings, that at 
your first caprice you discarded me without one qualm 
of conscience. What were my humiliation, my suffer- 
ings to you? What did you care if the spirit of hope 
were crushed from my young heart, if my sacred claims 
upon your honor were abjured? The first rush of 
your passion had spent itself, you wearied of me, and 
so I was ruthlessly sacrificed to the later fancy. You 
put upon me the supremest affront man can put upon 
woman, and so lost were you to any sense of moral 
integrity or justice that you failed to realize the enor- 
mity of the outrage. Now that I have struggled and 
labored in sweat and agony for a foothold on the ladder 
of success and by my utmost efforts gained a measure 
of independence and distinction, you are ready to share 



ACT III 251 

my prosperity with me. I say it cannot be! 

Merritt — ^You belong to me by every right of earth. 
In the sight of heaven, you are mine, mine only! 

Oressa — No longer! Your own act severed every 
claim you had upon me. You made my past a hateful 
thing to my memory. With relentless hand, you tore 
away the delicate veil of my illusions; you robbed my 
secluded and contemplative life of the sweet glamour 
that alone brightened it; you rudely awakened me to 
the harsh reality of things, of men's sordid selfishness 
and meanness, of the world's cruelty. 

Merritt — {JVith an impatient gesture.) That is 
dead and done with. The future is ours in which to 
redeem all our mistakes. 

Oressa — Not ours; it is mine to do with as I will! 
Do you think, then, that any reparation on your part 
can restore the broken enchantments, — bring back the 
fervor and glow of youth's lost enthusiasms, can make 
amends for the crushing and beating out of girlhood, 
can compensate for the robbing of virginity's sacred 
belief in God's goodness and justice, its divine faith 
in man's chivalry? Oh, there can be no reparation 
from you! 

Merritt — I have made you a perfectly legitimate 
offer. I stand ready to repair the wrong I have done 
you. 

Oressa — And I tell you, it is irreparable. Without 
scruples, you left me in a wretched dilemma, depend- 
ent on my own resources to extricate myself as best I 
could. You exposed me to the tender mercies of the 
world and you had no care whether I lived or died. I 
feel toward you nothing save deepest abhorrence and 



252 THE SUPREME TEST 

contempt. 

Merritt — {In repressed tones.) You reject my 
proposal, then? 

OkesSA— {Turning from him.) I have said so. 

Merritt — ^And you will not reconsider your de- 
cision ? 

Oressa — {Moving away.) It is final, 

Merritt — ^You take a high and mighty hand with 
me because you are puffed up with your success here 
and exult in your independence. You think the world 
is yours to order as you will and to take from it 
whatever you desire, with your pick of admirers and 
husbands. But because you have fallen on good 
times, you can't afford to be too independent. It 
might be the part of policy to take into account that 
there are certain facts in my possession which, in the 
event I chose to divulge them, might prove a set-back 
to this independence of yours. 

Oressa — {With a snake-like movement rearing up 
her head.) You threaten me? 

Merritt — {In restrained tones.) I have not said 
so. But if there is no other way to bring you to rea- 
son, I shall be forced to employ coercive measures, for 
I tell you, right here, I am determined no other man 
save myself shall have you. 

{Oressa looks at him steadily with glittering eyes, 
drawing in deep, labored breaths.) 

Merritt — It would not be pleasant for a young 
woman who has so lately made her debut on the stage 
of affairs to have some unsavory truths dragged into 
the light. It might lessen the public esteem in which 
she is held, even make her notorious. 



ACT III 253 

{Oressdj breathing with deep gasps, clenches and 
unclenches her hands.) 

Merritt — I promise you, if you treat me decently, 
you will receive kindness at my hands, but if you per- 
sist in this attitude of insolence, by heaven, there is 
not anything I w^ill stop at to bring you to terms! 

Oressa — {Hoarsely.) Not myself or anything be- 
longing to me can you legally touch. Oh, I thank 
my God for that every day of my life! 

Merritt — Not even your name, the good opinion 
in which you are held? {Smiling.) A woman who 
has once loved a man is never again quite mistress of 
herself, {With a sudden change to tenderness.) 
Come, now, Oressa, I have no desire to persecute you, 
only you must not set up such stubborn opposition to 
me. Why should we two play at cross purposes when 
it is to your advantage to be on an amicable footing 
with me? You cannot afford to make me your enemy. 
Be a little conciliatory, a little tractable. Why, I 
can remember when you were more yielding. {Draws 
her to him. With wild strength, she breaks from him.) 

Merritt — Still refractory? I am either for or 
against you. Think twice on that. 

Reenter Maid with Leavenworth. 

Maid — Gentleman, Miss. 

Leavenworth — {To Oressa.) I meant to have 
brought you a box of sweets this afternoon. Miss 
Holliday, but it slipped my mind. {Perceiving Mer- 
ritt.) So I thought I would just run in a moment to 
fetch it. 

Oressa — But stay, it is my wish, Mr. Leavenworth. 
And let me make known to you an acquaintance of 



254 THE SUPREME TEST 

mine in the old days before I came to New York, — 
Mr. Merritt. 

Leavenworth — {Advancing and shaking hands 
heartily with Merritt.) I am sure any one who is 
an acquaintance of Miss Holliday's has a claim upon 
the interest of her friends. 

Merritt — {Stiffly.) Thank you. 

Reenter Virginia with Duquet. 

Scene V 

Virginia — Mr. Duquet, Essie. {Starts on per- 
ceiving Merrittj and acknowledges his presence with a 
bare inclination of her head.) 

Duquet — {Advancing with a sheepish air, holding 
in one hand a bouquet of violets tied with purple rib- 
bons.) I saw these violets in a floral shop on my way 
down town and I thought you might like them. 
{With a deprecatory smile, proffers the violets.) So 
near Easter, you know. 

Oressa — {With agitation.) They are very accept- 
able. 

Duquet — {Perceiving Leavenworth.) Why, 
Lewy, old man, you here? 

Leavenworth — {With a sheepish smile and a voice 
of assumed carelessness.) Just dropped in informally, 
you know. 

Duquet — Of course, of course. Well, I must be 
going. 

Oressa — {In a clear, distinct voice.) I have asked 
Mr. Leavenworth to remain a little while, and I ex- 
tend the same invitation to you. As I informed him. 



ACT III 255 

there is an old-time acquaintance here who, having 
heard of my good fortune, has sought me out. Mr. 
Duquet, I make known to you Mr. Merritt. 

DuQUET — {Shaking hands with Merritt.) It is 
a pleasure, suh, to meet you. A person who has 
known Miss Holliday at any period of her life may 
count himself rarely privileged, suh, 

Merritt — {To Oressa, with a short laugh.) These 
must be some of your new friends, coming in the 
wake of your lucky strike. You are holding a recep- 
tion, I take it. 

Oressa — ^The coincidence of these calls is utterly 
unexpected and yet opportune, for it relieves my mind 
of a weight of responsibility that has long held me in 
suspense, and clears the way for the uncovering of a 
secret that in my cowardice I had intended keeping 
hidden. 

{Merritt looks about with a puzzled expression.') 

Oressa — I had contemplated entering upon a course 
of fraud, lying and deceit and the repudiation of what 
is innocent and helpless, to gain a temporary security 
and a counterfeit happiness. 

{Leavenworth and Duquet exchange wondering 
glances.) 

Oressa — If it had not been for the fact of these 
three calls coming thus fortuitously together, I fear 
I should have pursued this course of dishonesty that 
would have led me I know not where. But this man 
{Pointing to Merritt), whom I may rightly call my 
god of retribution, has left me no alternative other 
than to disclose the truth. 

Virginia — {In a warning voice.) Oressa! 



256 THE SUPREME TEST 

Merritt — I am not forcing anybody to disclose 
anything. 

Oressa — Because you think the time is not ripe. 
But there is no desperation akin to that of feeling one- 
self snared within a power that is remorseless as odious. 
The doubt, the uncertainty of not knowing when the 
Damoclean sword will fall is more than the stoutest 
nerves can bear. So I am resolved to let you do your 
worst now. {A dead silence intervenes. The atmos- 
phere is charged with tense expectancy.) 

Oressa — {With a sweeping gesture toward heaven- 
worth and Duquet.) Both these men are my declared 
lovers. {Leavenworth and Duquet start and look at 
one another.) 

Oressa — Both are square, upstanding men, and the 
offer of hand and heart by either of them any woman 
would look upon as an honor. To win the love of one 
of these men, I have been ready to perjure myself, deny 
my own blood! For the sake of just one year of 
happiness to be spent with him, I would willingly 
forego my cherished ambitions, renounce my prospects 
of high service and of eminence, and surrender all that 
the future might hold for me of possible triumph and 
glory! More, I would yield up my whole existence 
without a murmur ! What is a young girl's immature 
love to a passion so mighty, so all-conquering as this 
that reaches to the deepest fibers of life, absorbs and 
possesses the entire being? I have confessed to the 
truth, I am proud of it, I exult in it! And now, out 
with what you have to say! 

Merritt — I have only to say to your friends what 
I have been saying to you the past hour. I confess 



ACT III 257 

to have treated you badly, but I have come back to 
make it right. What can any man do more than to 
show his willingness to repair a wrong? 

Virginia — Essie shall not be allowed to longer 
shield me at the expense of herself or take the burden 
of my misfortune upon her shoulders. This man was 
my lover, not hers. He treated me shamefully, aban- 
doned me! 

{Leavenworth and Duquet exchange bewildered 
glances.) 

Merritt — ^What are you talking about? I your 
lover! Are you crazy? {Contemptuously.) What 
would any man want of youf 

Oressa — {To Virginia.) Unselfish spirit, best of 
loyal women, devoted of sisters ! You shall not- be 
allowed to falsely accuse yourself, to defile your spot- 
less character with a taint in order to save me in the 
regard of these men, even if their good opinion is so 
precious as to seem in my eyes to transcend life itself! 
Your sacrifice would be futile, for the facts are of such 
a nature as to defy being held down. ( To Leaven- 
worth and Duquet.) You are going to know what I 
have tried in my short-sighted judgment to keep con- 
cealed. I shall unshroud the entire miserable affair of 
my past. This man was the husband of my dearest 
friend, and so I came to know him when he was 
courting her. Later she died, he brought her body 
to her mother's home. Naturally enough, I was there 
to render what assistance lay in my power. He turned 
to me. It was not a difficult thing for him to win the 
affections of an inexperienced girl. I had known so 
few men and never had had a lover. Under promise 



258 THE SUPREME TEST 

of marriage, he ingratiated himself in my confidence. 
I trusted him implicitly. Later,, when the date of our 
wedding was about agreed upon, without giving me the 
least premonition of his intent, he cast me aside and 
married another woman, of whose very existence I 
had been kept in ignorance. ... I was left in the 
most pitiful of plights. I dared not remain home and 
face my father's wrath, my mother's tears and upbraid- 
ings. I had no other alternative than to take flight. 
Almost penniless without friends, I fled to this city 
,to lose myself in the great vortex. 

DuQUET — {In a voice of thrilling auffuish.) Ores- 
sa! {With a wild gesture, he puts both hands to his 
forehead, and then, bending his head, covers his face 
tuith them. Leavenworth straightens himself in his 
chair as a man turned to steel.) 

Oressa — {As one repeating a lesson.) I worked up 
to the very day that my little one came. As soon as I 
gathered strength enough to leave my bed, I went to 
my toil again. I found through advertisement that 
I could get her into the home of an humble family liv- 
ing in the country. I worked at anything and every- 
thing I could find to my hand that would furnish the 
funds for her care and my own support. It was toil 
unceasing, but it was that or pauperism for us both, 
and I couldn't abide the thought of having my baby 
put in some asylum and lost forever to me. By 
strictest hoarding of my pennies, by the suffering of 
most cruel privations, I was enabled once a month to 
go and see her. Nights and Sundays I wrote until 
my exhausted brain refused to give forth any more 
ideas. My health suffered under the strain and broke 



ACT III 259 

at last. On the verge of utter collapse, with only a 
few cents remaining between me and starvation, I had 
recourse in my last extremity to one who once had 
bidden me in the event of my need to apply to him. 
The rest of my story is familiar enough; it is history 
made by yourselves. This I want to say: if I had not 
known from actual experience, I would not have be- 
lieved such compassion, such generosity, such humanity, 
existed on this footstool as that which was evidenced 
in your every act toward me! 

Leavenworth — {To Merritt.) Do you mean us 
to understand that there is a man on this earth so 
base, that after this forlorn girl, flung into the ditch, 
has succeeded by desperate efforts in crawling out of 
it, can nerve himself up to the unspeakable meanness 
of trying to pluck her down again ? You contemptible 
cur! {Springs to his feet, makes a liffhtning rush and 
precipitates himself upon Merritt. They grapple, 
wrestling furiously. Contending with wild energy, they 
are driven by the impetuous momentum around the 
room. Leavenworth is enabled now and then to land 
blows on Merritfs head and face, and at last half- 
stunning him with an assault below the belt succeeds 
in overmastering him and flings him out of the door, 
banging it shut on him.) 

Leavenworth — {Gasping hard.) A good piece 
of work accomplished. 'Tis a thrashing well merited 
and long overdue. My God, that such monsters are 
allowed to live and move in the light of day among 
men! {Takes up his hat.) 



26o THE SUPREME TEST 



Scene VI 

Oressa — {In a pleading voice.) I have made a full 
confession of my case, and now I ask for your 
verdict. {Leavenworth pauses^ averting his gaze from 
her.) 

Oressa — I know how utterly unprincipled it was in 
me to try to impose myself upon you under false as- 
sumptions. No one knows as she who has committed 
it, the enormity of a sin like mine, but I have re- 
pented it in anguish and shame of spirit, I have re- 
pented it in bodily discomforts and miseries untold, 
over and over again. The only extenuation I can offer 
for it was the lack in my girlhood life of outside in- 
terest, of social companionship, my ignorance of the 
fundamental laws that underlie the relations of men 
and women. Can't you, then, put some charitable 
construction on my conduct and find it in your hearts 
perhaps even to forgive me? {Looks from one to the 
other. Leavenworth refrains from meeting her gaze; 
Duquet keeps his face hidden.) 

Oressa — {With supplication.) Can't you speak 
one word of kindness? {She waits. In a tragic voice.) 
Is there not anything, then, that a woman can do 
through atonement, reform, through valuable service, 
through great achievement, that can blot out her one 
offense against the social order? 

The world is harsh and unrelenting, often through 
its contracted vision, its limitation of comprehension. 
It is otherwise with you; emancipated of mind, catho- 
lic of spirit, and wide in your scope of view, liberal of 



ACT III 261 

judgment, in your strength and wisdom you under- 
stand, and are thus compassionate to the frailties of 
the weak. {In sweet entreaty.) You who love me, 
I beseech to be merciful to my shortcomings. You 
who love me, are quick in your sympathies, responsive 
to appeal, and I beseech you to spare me! You, Ar- 
mand, are generous and in the presence of suffering 
are not wont to remain unmoved. You, Carroll, I 
made no difficulty in forgiving. I was only too ready 
to pass over your youthful transgression. And I have 
paid in full, indeed, indeed, I have paid! {In a 
stricken voice.) Not one word? 

I have drawn the curtain aside from my inmost 
woman's soul and it is unavailing! I have plead as 
one whose life is at stake pleads before the judgment 
bar, and it is unavailing! {Virginia goes and puts 
her arm around Oressa. Slowly and in silence they 
move to the door, open and close it after them.) 

Curtain, 



ACT IV 

Livinff-room in Holliday house. \ 

Setting as in Act I. 

Time — Evening in Mayj two months later. 

Holliday is reclining back in a rocking-chair in his 
stocking-feet. 

Enter Mrs. Holliday, attired in a modish gown of 
soft silk with lace at throat and wrists. 



Scene I 

Mrs. Holliday — Everything is ready. I measured 
the tea in the tea-pot convenient to put drawing as soon 
as they come, and I laid out a cold lunch on the table 
with some sauce and bread and sliced meat and cheese, 
knowing they would be tired and hungry after a whole 
day's journey on the train. {Draws a deep sigh of 
weariness and sinks into a chair.) 

Holliday — ^They ought to be here pretty soon, now. 
I hope you remembered to turn down the gas in the 
dining-room ? 

Mrs. Holliday — You needn't worry about it, for 

I am not likely to forget. When have I ever wasted 

anything in this house? I should like to see you find 

any one else who would be more economical in ex- 

262 



ACT IV 263 

penditures than I have been for the last forty-odd 



years 



HoLLiDAY — {Mildly.) There is no need of going 
into an argument when I simply meant to call your 
attention to it. 

Mrs. Holliday — Huh! I ought to quit here and 
just let you have a taste of hired help for a w^hile, with 
their extravagance and indifference and the kitchen 
full of fellows, and I guess you'd be mighty glad to 
get me back and not find so much fault either. . . . 
Why, pa, are you in your stocking-feet? I should 
think, when you haven't seen your daughter in over 
three and a half years you would have pride enough 
to put on your shoes! You might do her the credit 
to appear decent. I wonder what other man of your 
position in life would go around in so slumpy a way! 

Holliday — Well, they haven't got such bad feet 
as mine, — corns and bunions and everything else to 
hurt. It is a pity in my own house I can't rest 'em a 
little. 

Mrs. Holliday — You don't try to keep up, Benn. 
You just allow yourself to sink into old man ways. 
I would rather you wore those shuffling slippers than 
none at all. {Reaches under the table and unearths 
a pair of worn slippers.) Here, put these on. 

{Holliday, emitting a groan of resignation, draws 
on the slippers.) 

Mrs. Holliday — There, that's better. Remember, 
the girls are used to city men and the contrast will 
be very marked when they see their father so slovenly. 

Holliday — I guess they are used to their father. 

Mrs. Holliday — Let them think you have spunked 



264 THE SUPREME TEST 

up a little during their absence. . . . There is one 
thing I have made my mind up to, and that is to show 
a proper displeasure at Oressa's treatment of us in order 
to bring her to a full realization of what she has done 
in disregarding her duty to her parents. 

HoLLiDAY — I guess you have already brought her 
to that, for after her letter of two months ago, in 
which she asked forgiveness for her neglect and per- 
mission to come and see us once more, and you answered 
back what you did and were so lukewarm in extending 
your hospitality, she was evidently discouraged, for she 
never wrote again and we didn't hear from either of 
them until Virginia's letter of yesterday, saying they 
would be here to-night. 

Mrs. Holliday — I did perfectly right in resenting 
such neglect as any self-respecting parent would do! 
The idea of a girl running away from home, even if 
she thought she had provocation from her father and 
mother, and never coming back for three and a half 
years, to say nothing of not writing a word to let us 
even know whether she were dead or alive for nearly 
three years! It betrays a lack in her of right feeling! 

Holliday — {Clearinff his throat.) Hum, hum! 

Mrs. Holliday — It put us in such an embarrassing 
position, for if any one asked how she was or where 
she was, how could we answer except to evade or tell 
a downright falsehood if cornered, when we hadn't 
the slightest idea ourselves? I have read of such 
conduct in slap-dash people without any sense of 
decency, but I never actually knew of such a case 
in any well-regulated family. 

Holliday — ^You mustn't be too exacting. 



ACT IV 265 

Mrs. HoLLroAY — {With withering contempt.) 
Puh! Exacting! I know what's owing to us, if you 
haven't pride enough to expect anything from your 
children. I don't care if she was disappointed in that 
sneak of a Merritt. I always distrusted that man and 
his soft-spoken wa5^s. But was that any reason for 
her to turn on those who brought her up and to whom 
she owed some gratitude? It was the height of im- 
propriety for a young girl to go and live alone in a 
great city like New York. It put her in a wrong 
light. What do you suppose people said? 

HoLLiDAY — She had no time to waste on what 
they said. If her description in her letter, guarded 
as it was, told anything, she was up against it so good 
and hard that she had about all she could do to keep 
body and soul together. I could read between the lines, 
if you couldn't, and the hardships she suffered in those 
three years put those we endured in the easy class. 
That she could go on and do what she did, under such 
difficulties, showed true grit and pluck. I didn't know 
it was in her. How she ever managed in such deep 
waters to keep from sinking outright is a mystery to me. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Tossing her head.) She wasn't 
called on to place herself in a position where she had 
to bear privations. She had a home, even if it was 
poor, and she was welcome to stay in it. And since 
she has come before the public she has gone on living 
in the same unprotected way. Don't you suppose it 
aroused comment for a young woman under thirty 
years old to keep up an establishment and receive com- 
pany without some elderly and discreet person to take 
the curse off? She must have been awfully talked 



266 THE SUPREME TEST 

about. 

HoLLroAY — You are always so worried about how 
things look to people and what they are going to say. 
She had her sister to chaperone her. 

Mrs. Holliday — She sent for Virginia only a few 
months ago. Before that, who knew if she had any 
one at all? She laid herself open to misunderstanding. 
Of course I know a girl brought up under such careful 
moral tutelage as I gave my daughters was in no 
danger of being tempted to anything wrong. Still, 
she might have received some insult that would have 
been very unpleasant. Oressa is certainly eligible now 
to make a fine match, but high-feeling young men 
are wary of girls who are not sheltered by conventional 
proprieties. 

Holliday — {Clearing his throat.) Hum, hum! 

Mrs. Holliday — ^As a needed lesson and to strongly 
discountenance such free and easy Bohemian doings, she 
ought not to be received by us, for a time at least. 

Holliday — {With heat.) Well, I guess she will 
be received by us ! I won't have it said a daughter of 
mine was turned away from her father's house. 

Mrs. Holliday — She will come, of course. But 
I shall show my resentment of her want of duty to us. 

Holliday — For heaven's sake forbear throwing it 
up in her face! There are more important things to 
lay at all of our doors than some petty fancied neglect ! 

Mrs. Holliday — You call a slight of three and a 
half years' standing a fancied neglect! 

Holliday — ^You've been harping on her neglect of 
us for months past, until I'm sick to death of hearing 
of it and I tell you right here, once and for all, I don't 



ACT IV 267 

care a damn! 

Mrs. HoLLroAY — Benn Holliday! You needn't 
swear ! 

H01.LIDAY — It's enough to make a man swear to be 
so nagged! 

Mrs. Holliday — I can't help noticing, Benn, that 
since you've been backsliding from the church you 
aren't half the man you used to be. 

Holliday — Nonsense! I'm twice the man I used 
to be, for now I am doing my own thinking for my- 
self! 

Mrs. Holliday — {Shaking her head.) The church 
certainly acts as a restraint and you controlled yourself 
m.uch better than you do now. 

Holliday — As to that, I'm getting old and I 
haven't the power of self-control I once had ! . . . The 
fact is, Beulah, we can't afford to turn the cold shoulder 
on Oressa; the loss would be more to us than to her, 
for she is the only one in our family who has been 
heard of in the outside world or is likely to be. 

Mrs. Holliday — I have always been given to un- 
derstand that you thought only your sons were the ones 
to be heard of in the outside world. 

Holliday — I did once think so, and they will do 
credit to their education by making the most of it and 
playing their part worthily, and will be looked up to 
and respected. If a man really wants to push clear 
of the crowd now-a-days he has got to do more than 
merely do his work well, for everybody is supposed to 
do that or get snowed under in the competition. He 
has got to learn more about some one thing than other 
people know, and when he has learned it, utilize it to 



268 THE SUPREME TEST 

better advantage than his rival is able to do. Then 
he gains a reputation for being somebody. But when 
a man, just out of sheer natural ability, can go ahead 
of all these plodding fellows bent on attaining higher 
merit in their special work, and make something new 
clean out of his head they had never even thought of, 
why, there's only one word to express that and you 
know what it is. And my boys weren't born with it. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^Well, I declare, you seem to 
have pretty much changed your mind lately. 

Hqlliday — {Bridling.) Can't a man have the privi- 
lege of changing his mind? 

Mrs. Holliday — I suppose he can. But you had 
so little faith in her when she was home here with us, 
trying to grope her way into the light, that you 
wouldn't put out a finger to help her. 

Holliday — What's the good of reminding me of 
that? {Reflectively.) It beats me where she got it. 

Mrs. Holliday — What, her gift? Well, you 
know very well her gran'ma Durant wrote poetry of 
a religious sort, very lofty and devotional, and my sister 
Lorinda for years corresponded for a weekly and even 
once got an article accepted by St. Nicholas. It was 
on balloons, I distinctly remember. She hunted every- 
where for information and posted herself thoroughly 
from the encyclopedia before she touched her pen to 
paper. They paid her ten dollars for it and after six 
months sent it back, saying they couldn't publish it, 
excellent though it was, for the reason they were so 
over-stocked with matter, enough for three or four 
years to come. Now that was an honor to be so 
highly appreciated by a magazine of such standard au- 



ACT IV 269 

thority. I have always firmly believed that if Lorinda 
had had any substantial foundation in literature she 
would have made a brilliant record in the world. Why, 
if my mother had lived in these days of higher educa- 
tion, she would have been head and foremost of all 
the female movements, she was that advanced in her 
notions. There is not the slightest doubt, Oressa got 
her ability in a straight line from her gran'ma Durant. 

HoLLiDAY — Maybe you are satisfied to trace it back 
there. 

Mrs. Holliday — Well, if I can't trace it from my 
side of the house, where in the world could I trace it 
from, I should like to know? {With withering con- 
tempt.) It certainly didn't come from your family, 
for I have yet to learn that any of the Hollidays 
amounted to much. Your son Harvey is always hunt- 
ing down the Holliday genealogy, but he never has 
succeeded, that I have heard of, in scaring up anybody 
more distinguished than a weaver or a farmer until 
your time! 

Holliday — They were industrious and respectable 
people, if they did lack the gumption to get very for- 
ward. They have been nine generations in this coun- 
try and during that time not a one was ever in State's 
prison ! 

Mrs. Holliday — It takes snap and go to dare 
things sometimes that land you in State's prison! 

Holliday — ^You can sneer. They were honest. 

Mrs. Holliday — I am not sneering. I am just 
pointing out to you the impossibility of Oressa getting 
any very remarkable powers from such a source. Her 
forbears from my side, however, were always prom- 



270 THE SUPREME TEST 

inent people, merchants and traders. The Wood- 
wards were of the pioneer stock in this country. My 
grandfather Woodward fought in the Revolution. 

HoLLiDAY — I believe all that you say of their su- 
periority, if hearing it over and over can impress con- 
viction. And yet I am very doubtful if these ancestors 
of yours have any claims on Oressa. It looks to me 
genius is quite independent of inheritance as it is also 
of education. 

Mrs. Holliday — Then it can't be natural ! 

HoLLiDAY — Well, let us take, for instance, a family 
of very ordinary people dwelling in England, none of 
whom had ever distinguished himself through ability 
in any way. At a certain stage in their obscure history, 
as a meteor bursts forth from a dark sky, one of that 
family discovered preeminent excellencies. And the 
world awoke to the fact that there had been born in 
it the most universal mind it had ever known, William 
Shakespeare! How do you explain that? 

Another illustration out of the many we can use 
is that of a Scottish race of rustics. For generations 
these common peasants had lived and died in utter 
obscurity, when all at once there emerged from the 
plow a master poet to astonish Europe under the name 
of Robert Burns! 

What do you know about that? It's puzzling to 
say the least. And how do you explain this that just 
the one in a family, brought up as are all the other 
members in a prosaic environment, sees in these sur- 
roundings poetry of the most ethereal kind? Why 
should he be the one alone to idealize these practical 
associations and find beauty and novelty where they 



ACT IV 271 

find only the ugliness and dulness of reality? I think 
there is a power outside heredity that has put some of 
itself in these persons. 

Mrs. Holliday — {Sighing.) It is only one more 
of the enigmas in the great secret that holds us. ^Vhat's 
the use worrying our poor brains trying to unravel 
any of them? 

Holliday — ^When a man is getting to a place where 
the end is almost in sight, he can't help speculating on 
the mysteries that face him at every turn. Well, one 
thing I have observed, that since she has come into 
public notice, I am a more important man in this 
town than I used to be. A great deal more considera- 
tion is paid me. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You mean that offer of the Vice- 
Presidency of the Surety Bank? It was a nice mark 
of appreciation. 

Holliday — Still I believe the honor was owing to 
her. Prominent men who never more than nodded or 
said howdy, stop now, shake hands and pass the time 
of day. Why here only yesterday, Mr. Blount, the 
President of the National Bank, inquired with much 
solicitude after the healths of all the family. They 
are very civil indeed. 

Mrs. Holliday — And why shouldn't they be civil? 
If you aren't about as good as any of those men, I 
should like to know the reason. Their pretensions are 
absurd. Indeed, none of their families would bear 
much looking into. Most of the aristocracy of this 
place has sprung from farms or little outlying villages. 

Holliday — ^Well, you mustn't forget, they've got 
the little gold eagles, Beulah! 



272 THE SUPREME TEST 

Mrs. Hqlliday — ^We ought to have them, too. 

HoLLiDAY — ^We've got something better, our money's 
out at high rate of interest. Our children are all 
doing well! We're coming, Beulah! We're coming! 

Enter Virginia, followed shrinkingly by Oressa, who 
is dressed in black and carries a small hand-bag. 

Scene II 

Virginia — {Coming forward.) How are you, pa? 

HoLLiDAY — {Getting to his feet.) Girls, you are 
welcome home. 

Virginia — {Kissing him.) Oh, it seems good to 
get back! {Goes to her mother.) 

HoLLiDAY — {To Oressa.) Well, Essie! {Extends 
his arms. In a voice of deep feeling.) It's been many 
a month since your old father has seen you, little one. 
{Voice quavers and breaks.) 

Oressa — I meant to have come long ago, but you 
know now why I didn't. I hope you haven't laid up 
anything against me, pa? 

HoLLiDAY — Laid up anything against you? No! 
{Puts back her hair and regards her with a yearning 
look. Draws her to him and kisses her again. Clears 
his throat, snuffs and coughs in efforts at self-control.) 

Oressa — {Going to her mother.) Here I am, 
mommy. {Offers to kiss her.) 

Mrs. Holliday — {Returning the kiss without en- 
thusiasm.) So you did find time at last to come and 
see us. 

Oressa — {In an expressionless voice.) Yes. 



ACT IV 273 

Mrs. Holliday — If you had waited another three 
and a half years you would, without doubt, have found 
us up in the church yard laid away for keeps, 

Oressa — {With quivering lips.) Oh, don't say 
that, mommy! 

Mrs. Holliday— It's only too likely. Your father 
and I are getting old people. You have been very 
naughty. 

Oressa — I have been naughty, mother. {Slips a 
gold piece in her hand.) 

Mrs. Holliday — ^What's this? 

Oressa — ^The loan I took from your purse, mommy, 
the night I went away. 

Mrs. Holliday — But this is a twenty-dollar gold 
piece, and you only took ten dollars. 

Oressa — It is the principal and the accrued interest 
of three and a half years. I intend to pay my debts. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You needn't pay your mother, 
childie. Well, come now into the dining-room. I 
have got a little supper waiting there for you. You 
must be hungry. 

Oressa — No; we got our supper on the diner. 

Mrs. Holliday — ^You must have a hot cup of tea, 
even if you don't want anything more. When one is 
tired, I have always found a hot cup of tea will refresh 
as nothing else will. Take off your hat and come right 
along. {Oressa obeys like a child.) 

I see you have a black dress. 

Virginia — {Quickly.) She thought it less con- 
spicuous for traveling. 

Mrs. Holliday — It is, and young women don't 
want to attract attention on trains by gay clothes which 



274 THE SUPREME TEST 

are the mark of vulgarity. Then, too, every girl ought 
to have a black dress for the sake of emergency. 

Virginia — (Uneasily.) Yes, of course. 

Mrs, Holliday — Unexpected things are likely to 
happen w^ithout notice. ... I always tried to impress 
on you girls the necessity of having one black dress 
apiece in your wardrobes. And it is so genteel! But 
Essie was opposed to black, I never could tell why, 
when it is so becoming to her fair skin. She thought 
it somber, I suppose, and young folks like colors. 

Oressa — I am opposed to it no longer. I find it 
of great consolation. 

Mrs, Holliday — You mean utility. Well, come, 
now. (Oressa follows her.) 

Exeunt both. 

Holliday — (To Virginia.) We have the chance 
to talk a little on this unfortunate matter, but first I 
admonish you to speak low. Her mother must be 
spared this knowledge. 

Virginia — (Nodding her head.) We understand. 
I told Essie it wouldn't do; it would crush mother's 
pride and embitter her remaining days, and that she 
owed her consideration and she must forbear. 

Holliday — A wise decision. Your mother is one 
of the best women in the world, but she couldn't under- 
stand this and the brooding on it would poison her 
entire pleasure in the child's success. 

Virginia — As events have shaped things, it will 
not be necessary she ever knows the truth. 

Holliday — Oressa is not like herself. She was 
always a girl of such high spirits. 

Virginia — Of mercurial spirits. 



ACT IV 275 

HoLLiDAY — Up and down, fluctuating from the 
heights to the depths. But now she seems so changed, 
so very quiet. 

Virginia — She is more than quiet, pa. She is apa- 
thetic, rarely showing interest in any event. For days 
she has been listless, scarcely saying anything, and some- 
times sits a long while with her head bent, or if she is 
roused out of this state of dull insensibility, it is to cry 
at the least provocation. 

HoLLiDAY — (With agitation.) How long has she 
been in this way? 

Virginia — About two months. When I first no- 
ticed it coming, I was so concerned I went at once to 
consult with doctors, and they said her vitality was low, 
her nerves shattered, being the after-effects of those 
three years of cumulative exertions and privations. 
Thejy prescribed change and complete rest. We went 
at once to a retired place in the mountains, away from 
everj^body we knew and where there was an utter ab- 
sence of excitement or annoyance that might cause 
worry. We were marking time there without much 
apparent change for better or worse in her condition, 
when the child, who had been full of sparkling life and 
energy, all at once sickened with spinal meningitis. 
In a short time it was all over with the little thing. 
It was the finishing stroke for Oressa. She was 
hysterical, alternating with morbid lassitude almost 
approaching unconsciousness, and when these first symp- 
toms wore away she sank into utter dejection. She 
has got it into her head that the child was taken from 
her as a punishment because she had tried to conceal 
its presence from her friends and its identity from 



276 THE SUPREME TEST 

others. She repeats again and again it is a retribution 
for her wickedness in being ashamed of it and trying 
to keep it in the background. She lashes herself with 
reproaches, accuses herself with being cruel and un- 
natural. 

HoLLiDAY — Poor girl, poor unfortunate girl! 

Virginia — ^There is no reason for such condemna- 
tion and bitter regrets, for in reality she was devoted 
to the little thing and made an idol of it. It was so 
dear and sweet and appealing in its bright and winning 
ways that I don't know who could have found the 
hardihood to withstand the innocent creature. It was 
touching to see how Oressa's very heart was bound up 
in it. She called it her treasure, her jewel of in- 
estimable value, because, I suppose, it cost her such a 
price. I have seen her a thousand times catch it up 
and hug it to her breast as though she could never let 
it go again, and kiss it over and over with such pas- 
sionate tenderness and look at it with eyes of such 
yearning affection as would melt your very soul. 
Whatever might have been her fault, she did not err 
from wanting in a sense of responsibility toward it. 
She went heroically through so much for its sake before 
it came and afterward to maintain it and herself. 

The entire affair has been, from the very beginning, 
a tragedy, and I fear it is going to end in her utter 
undoing. It is more than pitiful, it is terrible to see 
a girl so brilliant, so mentally strong and resourceful, 
so brave in her self-reliance, sink into a state like this. 

HoLLiDAY — We must do something to arouse her, 
to turn her mind into other channels. 

Virginia — If it is possible in the face of such a dis- 



ACT IV 277 

couraging situation where everything only serves to 
remind her of her grief. Only to-day, on the train, 
a 5'^oung mother scarcely more than a girl herself, with 
a beautiful little girl was seated not far from us. The 
mother amused herself by playing with the little one, 
alternately holding it from her and drawing it to her 
with caresses whilst the child, bubbling oyer with 
vivacity, bounded up and down on the seat opposite, 
giving vent to her glee in peals of silvery laughter. 
Oressa's eyes dilated and grew dark. Her features 
began to work from a very convulsion of anguish, and, 
no longer able to endure the sight, she covered her 
face, whilst her bosom heaved with dry sobs. . . . 
I can no longer bear the responsibility alone and I 
brought her here as a last recourse, thinking perhaps 
you might be able to relieve me and help her. 
Reenter Mrs. Holliday and Oressa. 

Mrs. Holliday — Oressa wouldn't eat anything, 
and only sipped a little of the tea. You better go and 
try, Virginia. Here I have been to the trouble of 
fixing a nice lunch for you girls and you won't even 
touch it. That's the thanks I get for my pains. 

Virginia — {Cheerfully.) I will go now. I was 
just talking a little with pa. 

Mrs. Holliday — Perhaps your father will be able 
to get Oressa to talk a little with him. It is pretty 
certain I can't get her to talk with me. 

Virginia — ^You don't understand, mother, dear. 
Essie isn't well. She has overdone herself. 

Mrs. Holiday — ^That's strange! Why, I shouldn't 
think just writing a play would overstrain a person 
to any great extent! 



278 THE SUPREME TEST 

Virginia — It's what goes before writing the play. 

Mrs. Holliday — She shouldn't have exposed her- 
self to so many difficulties when she had a home to stay 
in. For a girl to live three and a half years in New 
York unchaperoned, lays her open to misconception. 
The best conduct on her part would be misconstrued 
and set folks to talking. 

Oressa — {With a bitter smile.) When a girl is 
struggling for life, she isn't bothering herself much 
with what people are saying about her, 

Mrs. Holliday — Under any circumstances she 
should be careful of her reputation for that is all a 
girl has. I tell you a young lady can't carry herself 
too particular. (Listening.) Is that the bell? 

Virginia. — ^The man with our baggage, I suppose. 

Mrs. Holliday. — I will go and show him where 
to take it. 

Virginia. — Let me go with you, ma. 

Exeunt Mrs. Holliday and Virffinia. 

Holliday — {To Oressa and sighing deeply.) It 
is wisdom on your part to keep from your mother the 
experience through which you have passed since you 
have been away, as also the last event of which I have 
just been informed by Virginia. Your mother is not 
the kind to take into your confidence in such matters. 

Oressa — Ah, father, if she had only been the kind 
to have tried in the impressionable years of my life 
to gain my confidence, — if she had only been the kind 
to have been indulgent in the wisdom of her great 
love and tenderness to my foolish little errors instead 
of exaggerating them into something short of a crime, 
discouraging my childish confessions by the severity of 



ACT IV 279 

her censures, — if she had only been the kind to 
have warned me of the pitfalls waiting to entrap the 
feet of every inexperienced girl, — this unhappy episode 
might have been spared us! But why should I blame 
her for her want of understanding of girlhood's needs 
when the cause comes from a lack in her nature? 
I should never have considered a moment the thought 
of informing even you if I had not been financially 
independent and therefore outside the need of enlisting 
your aid. So I wrote you the facts. I had come to 
realize I owed it to the child in common justice to have 
her existence acknowledged by my family. The blame 
of her coming into this world was wholly mine; 
guiltless, she had a right to life and the opportunities 
pertaining to it. For the reason I had deprived her 
of an honorable name, her claim to recognition was 
the more imperative. Since her taking away I look 
on this matter with open eyes. I have come to see that 
of all the functions of womanhood that of maternity 
is the most sacred as the most important. It is 
Nature's impelling law that every woman, regardless 
of condition, consciously or subconsciously shall yearn 
to fulfil that function. Her love for man passionate 
and all absorbing though it be, in the last analysis is 
the love of the potential child ! Why, then, should I be 
ashamed because through ignorance I failed to resist 
this mighty law merely because it is eternally at 
variance with the dictums of an artificial social system! 
I am not seeking to exculpate myself, I am only telling 
you that my child is holy in the sight of the Creator 
of all things, whatever conventional life that is adapted 
to serve the purposes of expediency, might make her. 



28o THE SUPREME TEST 

Hqlliday — ^You are a very advanced woman, and 
you hold peculiar ideas that vi^ouldn't be endorsed by 
the common run of people. 

Oressa — I see things as they are in very truth; 
the common run see only the semblance of things as 
they are permitted to see them by sanctioned usage 
and authority. 

HoLLiDAY — ^You cannot produce any principle to 
uphold conduct that is subversive of moral law. 

Oressa — Not when that conduct imperils its secur- 
ity. Whosoever opposes that law must suffer the con- 
sequences. And who is strong enough to defy it and 
not be ground to atoms between the upper and nether 
millstones? {Bends her head.) 

Reenter Virginia with MacLachlan. 

Exit HoUiday by one door as MacLachlan 
enters by the other. 

Scene III 

Virginia — Mr. MacLachlan, Essie. 

MacLachlan — I have had the deuce of a time 
hunting you, Miss Holliday. You vanished as sud- 
denly and completely as though swallowed up by an 
earthquake. {He shakes hands with Oressa who shows 
signs of nervous disturbance.) 

Virginia — We went for rest, to the mountains. 

MacLachlan — ^Without leaving a word for the 
friends you thus abandoned. 

Virginia — ^We didn't anticipate that our absence 
would cause concern or leave you disconsolate. 

MacLachlan — But it did. Duquet was like a 



ACT IV 281 

restless flame flitting hither and thither in search of 
j^ou. I patrolled before your closed and darkened 
apartments until the cop on the beat suspicioning I had 
designs, dogged my steps and I just missed bj^ the skin 
of my teeth being run in. Leavenworth was the only 
one among us who preserved any sort of equipoise or 
equanimity, and he received some measure of consola- 
tion at last at the hands of that little kitten Flossie 
Duquet to whom rumor now says he is engaged. 

Virginia — What, Leavenworth engaged to Flossie 
Duquet ! 

MacLachlan — Such surprising things as that are 
brought about by the freakish turns of the wheel of 
Fate. 

Virginia — He must be more than twenty years 
older than that child. 

MacLachlan — But what's twenty years more or 
less when a chap is in love? He isn't bothering him- 
self to compute arithmetic at such a time, I assure 
you. 

Virginia — There comes a time though, when arith- 
metic counts. 

MacLachlan — And there comes a time when there 
is a reckoning all around for what we do. But who 
is disturbing himself about ultimates when he wants 
to do the things? Miss Oressa, I have a commission 
from Mr. Frohman for you to write him a new play 
to be tested out during the summer. 

Oressa — I cannot engage in it for performance is 
impossible. My mind is flat and stale, sterile of ideas 
and lacking in hope and incentive to inspire them. 

Virginia — She has been very ill. 



282 THE SUPREME TEST 

Oressa — I am burnt out. What is to become of 
me now that my invention has gone back on me? 
What is my prospect? Death is preferable to dragging 
out a barren and profitless existence when the beauty, 
the grace and the glory have fled from life and the 
high faculty of doing noble service in the world is 
lost. {MacLachlan looks at her with grave con- 
cern.) 

Virginia — You must not talk so, Essie. 

Oressa — (To MacLachlan.) How would you en- 
dure it if you felt the ppwer which is your pride and 
your joy, so exuberant, so overflowing that like Schu- 
bert's melody it poured itself out in an inexhaustible 
stream, and that in your fatuous over-confidence you 
deemed unfailing, all at once weaken and then desert 
you altogether? How would you endure the knowl- 
edge that it would not return, that you would never 
be able to write another line? To be eternally haunted 
by the desire to create, and to feel at the same time 
utter impotency to concentrate on ideas, or to frame 
a single situation, oh, it is horrible! 

MacLachlan — ^You are under the shadow of a 
temporary despondency. What you need is a new 
point of view. You want a complete change of local- 
ity where you have never been. Suppose I suggest 
something. How does a trip to the Pacific Coast look 
to you? 

Oressa — In my state of health I could not under- 
take it now. 

MacLachlan — But I do not propose that you 
undertake it alone. Let me accompany you and have 
charge of it. 



ACT IV 283 

Oressa — Oh, I couldn't allow you to do me such 
a service! 

MacLachlan — Even if it were a pleasure for me 
to devote myself to such a service and you gave me 
license so to do by going as my wife? 

Oressa — Your offer is more than kind. It springs 
from the pity in your generous heart for my forlorn 
state and I appreciate the honor you do me in asking 
me to be your wife, but love and marriage are not for 
me. 

MacLachlan — Oh, don't come to so hasty a con- 
clusion. Even if a girl has suffered a disappointment 
some time or other in her life and found out one man 
to be a mean-conditioned beast it doesn't necessarily 
follow that the entire bunch are rascals. She mustn't 
get it into her little head that there isn't some other 
chap decent and true, who is waiting around the corner 
to hand her out her full meed of happiness! 

Oressa — I have committed an act that excludes me 
from girlhood's sweet prerogative of love. 

MacLachlan — You are a female John Bunyan. 

Oressa — A most unworthy one. 

MacLachlan — I am a rough chap. Miss Holliday, 
and I shall probably bungle and not express with 
delicacy on the moment what I mean. But I want 
to say that there is a force of circumstances bearing 
down on a woman's life as well as on that of a man 
that sometimes proves so all powerful as to overwhelm 
her. Because she has once been submerged is she to 
be deprived of the courage to rise again? Because she 
has once made a false move in the game is she to forfeit 
all chances of redeeming that mistake and be com- 



284 THE SUPREME TEST 

pelled to renounce her right to what is fair and whole- 
some and honorable? I think not. I believe that we 
all have more than one throw of the dice in the big 
gamble. So buck up! 

Oressa — But an incident has occurred in my life 
that makes me in the eyes of men of pride and honor 
ineligible to accept an unblemished name. 

MacLachlan — If you have reference to that ex- 
perience that occurred in your life before any of us 
knew you, then I say I both can and do forgive it. 
- Oressa — {With excitement.) Then everybody 
knows about it and they have told you! 

MacLachlan — ^Who are everybody? Who are 
they? 

Oressa — Why Leavenworth and Duquet, of course ! 

MacLachlan — They have not spoken to me of 
such a thing, I have known this from the beginning 
of your coming among us. 

Oressa — {In amazement.) I cannot understand 
how you learned it. Who told you? 

MacLachlan — I will tell j^ou how I learned it, 
and I will tell you who told me 

Oressa — Sh-sh! Speak low! My mother 

MacLachlan — {In astonishment.) Have you 
then, not told her? 

Oressa — {With a wan smile.) A girl's mother is 
the last one to whom she is encouraged to confide a 
trouble like mine. 

MacLachlan — I will be discreet as to this matter. 
It was very simple. You had your baby cared for by 
a poor and respectable family in the countny. Now it 
so happened that the son of that family became my 



ACT IV 285 

chauffeur. He had of course heard of you and knew 
in full about your transaction with his people. Though 
he had kept himself out of your sight, being diffident 
and hulking, _ he nevertheless had not lost any oppor- 
tunities of seeing you on your periodical visits. Now 
he had often nursed and as it grew older played with 
your little one. When he began to drive me to your 
New York apartments and afterward took us on 
several occasions out automobiling together, he natu- 
rally was struck by the resemblance you bore to the 
girl he had seen at his country home. Puzzled by the 
disguise of your expensive finery and the prosperous 
mode of your life, his curiosity was whetted. He 
m.ade inquiries of course as to your identity and to 
his astonishment learned that the Miss Holliday of 
literary prominence was none other than the little 
Mrs. Holliday who had posed as a widow to his 
mother and sisters. He did not lose much time in ac- 
quainting me with his wonderful discovery. I told him 
that if he ever breathed a syllable of it to any one else 
I would smash his face to a pulp, and in addition fling 
him neck and heels out of my employ! 

Oressa — ^And you knew this right along and kept 
your counsel! 

MacLachlan — Why shouldn't I keep it? What 
do you take me for — an utter cad? Good heavens, 
I had thought I could lay claim to some pretensions 
to being a gentleman! 

Oressa — How you must have despised me for prac- 
tising such deceit on you all! 

MacLachlan — Instead I admired your self-control 
and aplomb. My curiosity was piqued to see how you 



286 THE SUPREME TEST 

would carry it through. Now let us put this aside. 
(Goes over to her chair and looks down in her up- 
raised eyes. In a voice of deep feeling.) Please be- 
lieve me that I want to help you, little woman. 

Oressa — I do, and that you are of the large-souled 
men oi this earth ! But I repeat love is not for me. 

MacLachlan — {Smiling.) I am not conceited 
enough to delude myself with the hope that your par- 
ticular little god has incarnated himself in my shaggy 
person. It would be a preposterous expectation that 
a girl of your sensitive feeling and fastidious taste 
would of her own accord, unsolicited, care for a big 
rough Scotsman like me. But only give me a show and 
I am confident that if the perseverance of patience and 
devotion can accomplish anything, I can win out at 
last against the odds. 

Oressa — It is out of the question. I cannot con- 
sider it. 

MacLachlan — Not so. There is more than one 
way of looking at a proposition and one's decision 
should be shaped through the best point of view. Senti- 
ment is not always to be considered absolutely fore- 
most in the matter of a union when it can be offset by 
respect and pure regard. There are alliances entered 
into. Miss Holliday, from a connection of mutual in- 
terests and advantage, from motives of noble expedi- 
ency, of highest desirability to both parties. You are 
in a position of rare delicacy at a critical stand in your 
life. Because of your youth, your personal beauty, 
your brilliant endowments, your conspicuous place, you 
are laid open, as few women are, to temptation and 
injury, to public notice and assault. You must have 



ACT IV 287 

protection, a shield to preserve you from the world's 
annoyances, to defend you from its attacks. I am 
offering myself as your guard and your security. 

Oressa — {Shaking her head.) I will have no need 
of protection henceforth. I have withdrawn from 
the arena not to return again. I shall soon be for- 
gotten, the little I have achieved swallowed up in the 
greater deeds of others. 

MacLachlan — Your career is too eminent to sur- 
render to obscurit}^ at the caprice of a temporary dis- 
couragement. You have toiled too hard to attain your 
goal! You are a woman of too much practical sense 
to let one episode in your past ruin your future possi- 
bilities. Your ambition is too genuine to be absorbed 
in vain regrets, your genius is too precious to be sacri- 
ficed to private feelings. That is weak and selfish. 
What if you have had a mischance ! Why, we rate men 
not by the faults they commit, but by the value of the 
service they are enabled to perform! We estimate our 
great men not by their moral delinquencies, but by the 
magnitude of their achievements! There are too few 
on this earth of the really gifted and original that we 
can afford the loss of even the least of them. Think 
of yourself first as belonging to the world. 

Oressa — I think of myself first and last as a woman 
only, with all a woman's frailties and foibles and con- 
tradictions and passionate yearnings for love and do- 
mestic happiness. What is fame, cold and glittering, 
to the softly luminous jewel that adorns the crown 
of womanhood — maternal joy? What are all the 
acclamations of the crowd to the little voice of child- 
ish satisfaction and delight? Do the fickle praise and 



288 THE SUPREME TEST 

homage of the public take the place of the tiny arms 
around your neck, the touch of pure lips on your 
cheek? I knew these blessings and valued them not 
until too late. And they will not come to me more. 
{Begins to moan feebly.) 

Virginia — {Aside to MacLachlan.) She lost the 
little one. 

MacLachlan — ^Ah, I begin to see! 

Oressa — ^The trouble with me, Mr. MacLachlan, is 
that my heart is broken. And it is not within your 
power to make it whole again. 

MacLachlan — {Aside to Virginia.) I am going 
to stay a few days in this town and to-morrow morning 
I will look in on you early. I consider her condition 
to be at a critical juncture and if something is not 
brought about soon to turn the tide of her thoughts 
from this gloomy brooding on her misfortune, I fear 
the worst. These passionate natures that feel with 
such intensity, suffer the pangs of death in their af- 
flictions as they rise to the highest heaven in their 
joys. 

Exit MacLachlan. 

Virginia — ^That is the noblest Roman of them all. 

Oressa — He is offering himself to me out of sheer 
pity. 

Virginia — He is offering himself to you because of 
his high regard and admiration for your qualities and 
because he believes he can be of real use to you. He 
will make you a sterling husband. His is a great heart 
full of sympathy, compassion and forbearance to the 
shortcomings of others. He understood and forgave 
you at once, indeed never thought hardly of you, when 



ACT IV - 289 

those who professed such ardent love at the first test 
you put it to, deserted you. 

Oressa — The first proved the supreme test. 

Virginia — They were not sincere in their loyalty 
or they would have remained stanch. 

Oressa — They will not enter our lives any more. 

Virginia — {Listening.) That sounds like ma's 
voice calling me. I must go back and help her about 
the unpacking. We are going to put your things in 
your room. You will sleep to-night in your own little 
bed. {Kisses her tenderly.) 

Oressa — I am going to rest a little now. 

Virginia — That's right. Be good to yourself, kid. 
{Pats her shoulder.) 

Exit Virffinia. 

Scene IV 

{Oressa rises slowly j her gaze on the door through 
which Virginia has passed, and then her eyes furtively 
rove over the room.) 

Oressa — It's odd but it seems to me lately night or 
day I almost never find myself alone. Does she sus- 
picion me, or is it just an excess of her sisterly devotion 
because I am ill? She is always either with me or, if 
she leaves me remains so close at hand that on some 
pretext or other, she is soon back again. I wonder 
how long I shall be left to myself now? 

{She goes with swift panther movements over to 
where she has placed her satchel and brings it to the 
table.) 

Oressa — Things have turned out other than I an- 
ticipated and wanted them to do, but at least the com- 



290 THE SUPREME TEST 

pensation is mine. I have lived life and I know life; 
I have even had my little day of triumph however 
brief. So what right have I to expect anything fur- 
ther? My life might have contained more satisfac- 
tions with some abiding happiness however small, but 
with my ambitions and my endeavors it matters not 
any longer. 

{Looks furtively all around, takes a key from the 
silver mesh bag on her wrist, opens the satchel and 
puts her hand in it.) 

Oressa — Strange, but I never felt more self-pos- 
sessed. I believe the stirrings of a strong curiosity are 
uppermost. 

Will the vast curtain of the Universe that shrouds 
in its impenetrable folds and shuts from our sight the 
workings of the mighty hand, be drawn aside? Will the 
sublime mystery of the myriad suns whose light glim- 
mering faintly in the remote abysses of the boundless 
vault has taken thousands of years to reach our view, 
be revealed at last? 

Will the baffling enigma of life and death be un- 
raveled, the inconceivable design be explained, the in- 
comprehensible scheme be made clear, to whose solu- 
tion philosophers, scientists and sages throughout the 
generations have devoted the powers of their search and 
inquiries! Or is man doomed never to know? With 
life are sense and knowledge severed, and with his last 
breath does he sink into the eternal sleep from which 
there is no more awakening? Or does he become 
merged into the great Consciousness losing in the 
illimitable gulf his personal knowledge and identity, 
whilst performing his infinitesimal part in the gigantic 



ACT IV 291 

operations! Perplexing and wonderful problem! 
Thrust without will or consent into a stupendous and 
obscure world, surrounded on every side by the im- 
pregnable walls of concealment, he runs his brief span 
and those who knew him know him no more, for he 
has passed into 

"The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
No traveler returns." 

{Brings forth her hand from, the depths of the 
satchel and there gleams in it a short thick revolver. 
Regards it curiously.) 

Oressa — So little and so all potent ! Apparently so 
insignificant and yet so ominous, the fateful instrument 
that in the space of a second will cause the old accus- 
tomed boundaries to fade into oblivion and usher in, 
mayhap, an unfamiliar panorama whose unfolding mar- 
vels the earthly imagination is powerless to conceive. 

Enter Duquet unperceived by Oressa, whose eyes 
are bent on the revolver. With silent lightning bounds 
he reaches her side. 

{Oressa s lips move. Duquet' s hand clutches the 
revolver. She raises her head and her eyes with a 
wild glance, meet his.) 

Duquet — A dangerous plaything! 

Oressa — {Gasping.) You! Who sent you! 
{Recoils uttering a terrified cry.) 

Duquet — ^What mad thing are you doing? 

Oressa — {With a distorted smile.) Sane thing! I 
know full well what I am doing. I never felt more 
self-possessed in my life! 

{She is seized by a violent spasm that shivers her 
from head to foot. With weakening limbs she totters 



292 THE SUPREME TEST 

to a chair and sinks in it.) 

Reenter Virginia 

{Duquet raises his hand with an imperious gesture 
enjoining silence. He stands in a fixed attitude his 
concentrated regard on Oressa.) 

Oressa — {Covering her eyes with her quivering 
hands and still shaken by the force of the uncon- 
trollable convulsion.) Is this, too, a dream like the 
others through which he phantom like is always flitting, 
sometimes luring me with his tender smile, more often 
repelling me with his frowning gaze of accusation? 
Or is it really he come back in very truth? No, no! 
impossible! for he lacked further concern in my for- 
tunes, he showed himself to have neither sympathy nor 
clemency for me in my trouble! Did he not at the 
revelation of my fault recoil from me in utter aversion 
and horror? He will never overlook it on this earth 
or soften in his severity to me. Perhaps in the other 
world he may understand and forgive me when he 
knows how I loved him! 

Virginia — Essie ! 

( Oressa raises her head and stares with wide startled 
eyes as one too suddenly awakened.) 

Oressa — {In bewildered tones.) Who spoke to me 
just now? Was it a voice in my brain? Or was it 
Armand's ghost? 

Virginia — {Tenderly.) It is I, your sister, Vir- 
ginia. {Goes to her and takes her hand.) 

Oressa — Virgie. Where am I ? Oh, yes, I remem- 
ber now, I'm home again! {Groans and moves her 
head restlessly from side to side.) But what matters 
where I am when the haunting memories are always 



ACT IV 293 

torturing me here? {Puts her hand to her forehead.) 
Who was it interfered? 

DuQUET — {Coming forward.) It was I. I come 
to ask your forgiveness, Oressa. 

Oressa — ^Why must you prevent me seeking peace? 
When hope is at an end, the avenues of usefulness 
closed, when there is nothing left in the way of achieve- 
ment or joy, do you not find in your creed justification 
for seeking release? Then why must you bring me 
back to my misery? But then, that other day you were 
unsparing, remorseless, unmoved by my supplications. 
Your love proved but a flimsy thing that took wings 
at the first trial. If it had been as you professed it, 
deep and abiding, it would have survived any shock, 
even the crushing force of the shock of my confession. 

DuQUET — {Earnestly.) And it did. As soon as I 
had rallied from the suddenness of the blow I awoke 
to the consciousness of your situation and the extenuat- 
ing circumstances conditioning your fault. I went back 
the very next afternoon following that scene to tell you 
how I regretted my want of response to your appeal. 
Your apartments were closed, the curtains drawn, you 
had fled the place leaving no word for any one. I tried 
to trace you. I became a typical Wandering Jew in my 
uneasy Sittings to and fro. I believe now that my 
wretchedness of soul by the miracle of telepathy com- 
municated itself to your subconsciousness and was re- 
flected in your dreams ! I wrote you letter after letter 
which were returned address unknown. And when my 
efforts proved unavailing as a last resort I came here 
to let you know how sorry I am for my failure that day 
to act in instant sympathy with you, and how fully I 



294 THE SUPREME TEST 

commiserate your misfortune. {Still trembling Oressa 
rises slowly from her chair and looks at him with a 
repellent expression. Gradually her breast fills with a 
deep inhalation and her form expands and becomes 
erect. ) 

Oressa — {In a voice of finality.) It is too late! 

DuQUET — {Gently.) Not so. You are not going, 
at this supreme crisis when standing at the parting of 
the ways of life so close to the brink of eternity that 
its shadow envelopes you, to nourish as your last 
thought resentment toward one who loves you as he 
loves naught else here below. You are going to break 
down this wall of hostility between you and me and 
give me an opportunity to set myself right with you. 
Will you not sit down, dear heart, and do me the 
justice to listen to what I have to say to you? {Presses 
her back in her chair.) 

Oressa — What explanations can you devise to ac- 
count for your insensibility to my distress that day, 
what regrets can you feign for your inexorable 
impassivity in the presence of my agony of mind and 
heart? Do you know, Armand Duquet, that it was 
then and there that I learned that the feeling you 
professed for me was not genuine, for love is kind, 
long suffering, patiently forbearing to the weaknesses 
and follies of its object and remains in the presence 
of the greatest offenses, — even crime itself, — un- 
daunted ! As in a flash of lightning your true character 
was illumined, and I saw you to be narrow in your 
sympathies, rigid in your judgments and relentless to 
moral failings. 

Duquet — {Bending on one knee at her side.) Do 



ACT IV 295 

not pass a sentence on me so unjust! Will you con- 
tinue to think that I am harsh, that I am illiberal, that 
I am relentless, when I tell you that the tyranny of 
this love I bear you has proved a very curse, the 
despoiler of my repose of soul, the ruin of my pro- 
ductivity, that I haven't written a line of original work 
since that day! {Oressa rises and takes a staggering 
step from him.) 

Oressa — I am ill. I am in no condition to argue 
this. Have mercy on my weakness if nothing else. 

DuQUET — {Restraining her.) You are not a figure 
of marble ! You are a woman, Oressa, full of passion 
and tenderness, suceptible to affection, ready to for- 
give ! 

Oressa — Let me go! 

DuQUET — {Holding her by the shoulders.) If you 
had ever entertained for me any feeling of real esteem, 
gratitude or otherwise, 5^ou would not find the fortitude 
to steel your heart against me to-night when I plead 
for a hearing. Was it, then, folly for me to have de- 
luded myself with the hope that you might have grown 
to cherish a deeper sentiment for me than a purely 
perfunctory regard? It must have been, for have you 
not said love is kind, long suffering, patiently for- 
bearing to the mistakes of its object, and does it not 
remain even with the provocation of affront and in- 
jury, firm, unshaken? {With strong passion.) Why! 
do you not know that I am ready to overlook any- 
thing and everything for your sake, to pass them over 
as though they had never been, — to fling away my 
career, — aye, to abandon those who are nearest to me in 
blood, and to follow your fortunes wherever they 



296 THE SUPREME TEST 

may lead us even to the uttermost ends of this planet! 
And when I swear to you this, will you say that the 
feeling I professed for you was not genuine? Do you 
not know that for this love which you hold in your 
keeping, I am ready to barter my soul, renounce my 
hope of salvation — for what is that without you ? {In 
a thrilling voice.) This fair globe is peopled with 
women beautiful and virtuous, but on it all there is 
only just the one girl for me! 

Oressa — {With strong gestures.) You would un- 
derrate my affection for you, even doubt its existence, 
when it was my expanding passion for you dominating 
my heart, overmastering my actions, that impelled me 
to the unnatural course of denying my own child ! In 
order to win your love in return, which in my fatuous 
delusion I thought the highest consummation of hu- 
man happiness, I kept her concealed out of sight of 
all eyes. Such madness of the mind made of me a base 
coward, a wicked mother, for I was fearful of the con- 
sequences if you knew the truth. But God punished 
me for my guilty conduct as I deserved, for the penalty 
He exacted of me was terrible. Like the bolt from 
Olympus that struck in Niobe's arms her remaining 
daughter, the blow descended and I was left shattered 
in health, deserted of friends, robbed of my last solace ! 
{Begins to weep.) 

DuQUET — And that is the reason for this black! 
My poor girl, my poor girl! 

Oressa — You, Armand, are the cause of this, for 
if it had not been for my wild infatuation for you, I 
should not have been ashamed of her. You proved 
yourself unworthy of such a sacrifice on my part and 



ACT IV 297 

it was my retribution you should. Oh, on all the face 
of the earth, is there a more desolate creature? Is there 
a single other deprived of a ray of hope to light her 
forlorn path? I have nothing to contemplate save 
saddest memories ! ... It was all a mistake from 
the first. What right had I to think of love and 
marriage, those blessings my sister women so innocently 
anticipate! Was it not boldest presumption on my 
part? So was I fitly rewarded! My experience had 
been so tragic, with only care and anxiety and toil. 
Don't you see how impossible it all is? Oh, why 
must you interfere when I had nerved myself to the 
one act that could bring release from this burden of 
wretchedness ! 

Exit Virginia softly. 

DuQUET — Because we two by virtue of the divine 
grant that is so brief and rare a boon, have a claim upon 
happiness that transcends all else! We are in the 
flower of that youth, Oressa, that blooms once only 
in a life time and is as evanescent as it is fresh and 
fair and fragrant! Now is our day and our oppor- 
tunity and not anything shall come between to take 
from us our benefice vouchsafed from On High! 
. . . There can be no such word as impossible in 
our calculations, for love has wiped it out altogether! 
Speak no more against your heart. Whatever your 
lips may utter, dear chile, the cry coming from your 
deepest nature over and over is for me to stay! 
{Extending his arms.) Come! 

Oressa — {Weeping.) When I abased myself in my 
confession of love, when I flung aside the veil of my 
very soul in my frantic prayer to you, you remained in- 



298 THE SUPREME TEST 

flexible. I can never forget that abyss of humiliation 
in which you cast me! Through you I have suffered 
too much ! 

DuQUET — I know, I know ! But this, precious one, 
is only the resentment of pride, and can that have 
any serious weight measured against the might of a love 
that we bear to one another that has withstood the 
most crucial test to which human affection can be sub- 
jected ? You are not going to hold thi^ paltry grievance 
against me! Ah, my dear, my love, mah honey! 
{Folds her in his embrace.) 

Oressa — {Struggling.) No, no, no! 

DuQUET — Stay a moment and let me speak, dearest. 
There was a time back in the twilight of created things 
when the Maker of the Universe planned human life. 
In His omnipotent Mind was shaped a picture of men 
and women of all races and different colors moving 
in countless processions through the centuries. On 
this colossal canvas, belonging to an epoch far, far in 
the distant future, was the vision of a 'little maid who 
was to take material form and substance under the 
name of Oressa Holliday. As He had purposed special 
service for her to render to Him, the spirit that was to 
be incarnated in this little maid was rare, and strong, 
and beautiful, and by virtue of its being thus, was 
destined to triumph over birth and place. The char- 
acter was to be fashioned noble and generous and 
impulsive with a touch of wilfulness. In this infinite 
omniscient Mind was spread forth all this little maid 
should think and do and become. He knew what was 
to be her environment, what were to be the peculiar 
circumstances hedging her about and that, possessing 



ACT IV 299 

this impulsive nature, He also in His prescience knew, 
she would yield to one temptation that should take her 
unawares. But in the infinite wisdom of this mighty 
all-seeing Mind that penetrated through eons of time 
with the knowledge that in this impulsive nature were 
locked great potentialities for good. He was aware 
that there must be forces of castigating adversity to 
develop them to their richest fruitage. For in His 
plan, human life was to be both imperfect and ex- 
perimental and to realize itself only through its own 
efforts, working out its salvation through determined 
struggles with obstacles. He knew that from the ashes 
of her dead self this little maid, so finely endowed of 
soul, Phcenix-like would rise to the noblest heights and 
be all the stronger and better woman for her trials. 

Oressa — {Wistfully.) Do you think that God 
who knows and understands all, means me to be 
happy at last? 

DuQUET — I not only think but am convinced of 
it, my darling, as I am convinced He has decreed from 
the beginning of time that we two shall belong to one 
another. {Bends his head and presses his lips on 
hers.) 

Oressa — Ah, Arraand, I am so tired ! If you knew 
what a weariness life has been to me these weeks! 

DuQUET — It will be so no longer. Put aside your 
torturing self-reproaches with the entire past that has 
served its purposes and been lived out and enter upon 
the new future, taking the happiness He has intended 
for you. Do you know that before I leave this town 
I am going to become your husband? 

Oressa — {With parted lips.) My husband! 



300 THE SUPREME TEST 

When? 

DuQUET — ^To-morrow morning — early in the morn- 
ing, and before noon we're off! Think of me to-night, 
love, as a hovering spirit guarding you through the 
silent hours and in the fresh morn taking material shape 
and vi^afting you hence as benignant genii bear those 
they love to enchanted realms. 

Oressa — How far hence? 

DuQUET — {Smiling.) Oh, to the other side of 
this big America! 

Oressa — ^Your family — your sisters — your mother — 
will never be reconciled to me when they know the 
truth ! 

DuQUET — My mother knows it already and is 
reconciled. I went home and laid the entire matter 
before her, told her of your fault, and of your brave 
struggles alone and friendless in the city to overcome 
your misfortune. I did not hold back anything in my 
recital of your wrong and your heroism, and as she 
listened the tears filled her eyes. From her stainless 
life came understanding and in her purity of soul she 
found compassion. She is willing to receive you, nay 
more, to welcome you. She has written you a personal 
letter which I am going to give you. You can't have 
any idea of my mother, — of how beautiful is her char- 
acter, how generous are her sympathies! There will 
be no trouble about my sisters, for you won little 
Flossie's heart that day she called upon you. She told 
me afterward how sweet and patient you were. And 
now no more objections. I have come for you, dear, 
and I will not be gainsaid. 

Oressa — You are too masterful! 



ACT IV 301 

DuQUET — {Lifting her off her feet and crushing 
her against his breast.) You are willing I be thus 
because you have chosen me for your lord. Is it 
not so? {With winning grace.) Won't you kiss me 
just once, sweetheart, in token of our betrothal, for you 
are my little fiancee this one eve only, you know. 
{She kisses him.) Ah, won't you grant one more to 
seal the compact you become my wife to-morrow? 

Oressa — But I haven't entered into any such com- 
pact. You are taking all this for granted. The time 
is too short. 

DuQUET — It has been too long by far. I have loved 
you dating from that night I verily believe you came 
fainting to my shelter. And I am going to shelter 
you in these arms all the rest of your days. 
Reenter Virginia. 

Oressa — {In quivering accents of joy.) Oh, 
Virgie, you don't know what a load of care and worry 
is lifted off my heart and what peace has descended 
upon it. You tell her, Armand! It is the most won- 
derful thing, it certainly must be magic! 

DuQUET — {Smiling.) The magic of love, sister 
mine! 

Oressa — It seems like a beautiful dream! 

DuQUET — ^A dream that shall last, God willing, 
whilst life remains. We have put everything behind 
us, sister Virginia, and are going to journey hand in 
hand along the pathway of life, following its fortunes, 
sharing its blessings and bearing its burdens together. 
{With a smile he holds out his left hand and draws 
Virginia within his arm and kisses her.) 

Curtain. 



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